Water-conserving firm claims prestigious King’s Award gong
DERBY-BASED HSG, a market leader in water conservation and washroom services, has been honoured with The King’s Award for Enterprise – the UK’s most prestigious business award.
HSG, based in Pride Park, is one of just 252 organisations nationally to receive the award. The honour is due to its excellence in innovation – recognising the further developments that have been made in its revolutionary washroom innovation technologies that significantly reduce water consumption, save money and help support a more sustainable planet.
Family-owned HSG originally won The Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation in 2018 for its market-leading Ureco System, comprised of the Ureco urinal sleeve and Uretech water management system. The Ureco System works to save water and money whilst improving the washrooms by eliminating smells and preventing urinal blockages.
Every year, the Ureco System saves
over 1 billion litres of water which equates to 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, across its customer sites which include Tesco, Toyota Manufacturing UK, NEC, Pizza Hut, All England Lawn Tennis Club, Aston Martin and more than 100 NHS sites.
The King’s Award recognises the further innovative technologies that HSG has brought to market alongside the Ureco System:
■ The Ureflush which was launched in 2022 and is a low-cost alternative to dual flush.
■ A toilet flush will use 11-13 litres, whereas Ureflush reduces this consumption to as low as 1 litre, depending on the duration the button is held whilst flushing.
■ - A new version of Uretech enables data capture, remote flush and a real time clock - providing more flexibility for the customer to concentrate the four daily flushes at high footfall times.
■ The Uretech Plus+ also provides wifi-enabled water management – providing minute-by-minute readings of water usage, leak detection and software that can remotely switch off the water if necessary.
■ Since the 2018 Award, an eighth enzyme has been included in the Ureco to enable the breakdown of the protein strain in hair.
HSG founder and managing director Simon Rice said: “We are deeply honoured that our continued innovation in sustainable technologies has been recognised with The King’s Award.
“This recognition demonstrates our ongoing commitment to reducing water wastage – enabling our customers to reduce their carbon footprint as well as saving them money and improving the washroom environment.
“Although we are a relatively small company, we certainly punch above our weight in the industry and have some of the most pr stigious venues in the country on our client portfolio.
“It is therefore a huge honour to be able to display The King’s Award emblem on all our packaging and marketing materials and to fly the flag outside our offices in Pride Park.”
Notable HSG customer savings have included:
■ The NEC were one the first adopters of the Ureco system in 2009. In the first year alone, it saved enough water to fill 33 Olympic-sized swimming pools and £100k a year on water bills.
■ Motorpoint Arena Nottingham installed the system in 13 male washrooms ten years ago – reducing water consumption by more than 214 million litres and saving more than £271,000 in water bills
■ Pizza Hut has saved more than £100,000 annually on its water bills following the national installation of the Ureco and Uretech water management system across all sites.