Wightlink is celebrating winning The News Business Excellence Award for Sustainability 2022.
The achievement recognises the successful introduction of Wightlink’s new flagship Victoria of Wight, England’s first large ferry powered by hybrid energy, and the ferry company’s campaigns to cut carbon emissions and operate as sustainably as possible.
Initiatives include improving recycling, installing EV charging points for electric vehicles, buying from local suppliers and promoting a range of environmental projects. Wightlink also supports partners to re-establish oysters in the Solent, support crucial seagrass beds in Ryde and re-introduce white-tailed eagles to the Isle of Wight.
The trophy for the Sustainable Business of the Year was presented at a ceremony at Portsmouth Guildhall by Professor Jeremy Howells, Dean of the University of Portsmouth’s Faculty of Business and Law. Another Award for sustainability went to the Package Free Larder, Portsmouth’s first plastics-free supermarket.
Chief Executive Keith Greenfield says:
“Wightlink is proud to sail through some of the most beautiful coastal waters in the UK, if not the world. As we cross the Solent 364 days a year, we are always conscious of our responsibility to protect the land, sea and air around us. Our next ambition is to commission and operate an all-electric ferry.”
Editor of Portsmouth’s The News, Mark Waldron, says:
“Each year we celebrate local business success whatever the challenges – and this year’s awards are extra-special after all that we’ve been through with Covid-19. Now restrictions have been lifted and society returns to a new normality, it is a good moment to reflect on and celebrate how much has been achieved, even in the face of adversity.”
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Hardly a surprise that they managed to ‘reduce their carbon emissions’.
Easy to be achieve when you regularly cancel sailings – no sailing = no carbon emissions.
Or am I just being cynical?
This is quite ridiculous. I lobbied Wightlink for several years to put “Please turn your engines off” signs up under their Portsmouth embarkation station car canopy. Indeed, I believe the only reason they finally did was as a result of me informing Keith Greenfield (face to face) that a Wightlink employee sent me an email that they had erected such signs when they hadn’t. The same applies to Ryde Pier Head. Once again I have been asking them to erect “turn your engine off” signs there as well for several years. “Unbelievably” another member of Wightlink’s staff sent me an email telling me they had now erected some. I forwarded the email.
Who were the judges? Unlikely to be anyone who uses Wightlink!
They run 364 days a year? Really? That’s apart from when they’re short staffed or have “technical issues” I can’t tell you how many times the Yarmouth ferry has been either cancelled or is running a “reduced schedule” over the last year. Covid or not it’s a rubbish service.
THATS why you need a fixed link,- no cancellations, ridiculour prices and hours onto your journey-just 10 minutes a toll and away you come and go
I don’t need a fixed link, just fairly fixed prices. Overnersc and hollibobbers’ magic bridge of equality will be owned by a corrupt council and the ferry companies if it is ever built. Honestly, please look at who funds the feasibility studies.
Sustainability? so long as those trapped on the island needing to leave, have money to be robbed of.
What a nerve this company has. They have absolutely nothing to be proud of. Their only contribtion to sustainability is the extent to which they sustain their cancellation record and price rises.
Absolute joke. Ridiculous