The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has won the UK Charity Awards’ Best Practice category for operating an open and transparent organisation. The award, sponsored by Barclays and organised by Charity Times, was made last night following a gala dinner at London’s Grosvenor House and was presented by Clive Anderson.
Ian Harris, Director of risk reward consultancy Zyen, felt the award for best practice was extremely significant: "With a team of just twenty, the MSC is one of the smallest and youngest international charities to win this year’s UK Charity Awards. One of the main criteria used for choosing the MSC for was the quality of the governance review and I hope the MSC will use the honour to go from strength to strength."
The MSC is delighted to have won this award, recognising its extensive governance review, completed last summer, which was held in consultation with all the MSC stakeholders and included the innovative use of web-based questionnaires. The results of the governance review have been promptly implemented and the core outcome is a greater balance of views and representation from different sectors that have formal input into the MSC’s governance process. Simultaneously, as a result of this strategic planning, the MSC has managed to quadruple its funding and increase, by nearly tenfold, the number of MSC labelled products in the global marketplace.
What the MSC says
Brendan May, Chief Executive of the MSC, commented: "We are thrilled to receive this prestigious award and it is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of everyone in the organisation, as well as the superb work undertaken by the independent Governance Review Commission. We are delighted that the UK Charity Awards panel has acknowledged our work with all the key players in this field and we feel tremendously uplifted that our achievements to promote a solutions-based approach and improvement in the structure and transparency of our programme have been recognised."
MSC supporters
The MSC enjoys support from a wide range of people including HRH The Prince of Wales, Prime Minister Tony Blair, celebrity chef and restaurateur Rick Stein, environmentalist Jonathan Porritt CBE, food connoisseur Loyd Grossman as well as a host of organisations across the fishing, wholesale, processor, retail, restaurant and NGO sectors.
Further information
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