Safia Minney MBE, CEO of REAL Sustainability has won the PEA (People, Environment, Achievement) award in the category of Green Pioneer sponsored by Weleda. The awards were announced on Friday 22 October. This was the 11th P.E.A. Awards in association with Citrix, to celebrate the UK’s leading sustainability awards show and the green trailblazers and changemakers behind the products, services and businesses that are changing the face of our planet.
Previous winners include Juliet Davenport OBE, Cat Fletcher, Polly Higgins and many other amazing Earth ambassadors who are committed to revolutionising old models and systems.
Across sectors ranging from finance and energy to music and art, the P.E.A. Awards identifies and celebrates the green heroes who are taking matters into their own hands and providing inspiring alternatives to business as usual. These sustainability pioneers are recognised and rewarded at a glamorous green carpet event!
Safia was shortlisted from six shortlisted candidates.
Safia is an award winning, international social entrepreneur, speaker and advisor. She has over 20 years experience as a global CEO of the company she founded, People Tree, developing the first sustainable and Fair Trade supply chains and standards. Safia has extensive international network in sustainability and the creative industries and is recognised by the World Economic Forum as an outstanding social entrepreneur. In 2018 she set up the Community Interest Company REAL Sustainability and is currently working on setting up Fashion Declares.
In responding to winning the award Safia said:
“It’s an honour to be acknowledged for my work by the Pea Awards as ‘Green Pioneer’. It’s 30 years since I founded People Tree which pioneered the first organic cotton and Fair Trade supply chains. Since then I’ve set up REAL Sustainability an information platform on sustainable living and leadership, and helped establish Business Declares whilst writing Slow Fashion and Slave to Fashion books. The paradigm has shifted, thanks to citizens, campaigning organisations and purpose-led businesses, and we have woken to the urgency and need for radical action and to put people and nature central to new systems – women and indigenous peoples’ rights, living wage, freedom of association, a global carbon tax and halt to all fossil fuel subsidies are commitments we need to hear at COP26 to create a Just Transition and net zero society by 2030 or soon after.”