Company of Mayo student receives major recognition

A Mayo students company has been recognised with the Goodbody Sustainability Award.

Final year student at Trinity College Dublin, 22-year-old Anthony Walsh from Belmullet is over outreach and client relationships’ for Saor Water. 

Saor Water were presented with the Goodbody Sustainability Award at the Irish Student Entrepreneurship Forum (ISEF) grand final event. 

Annually, at the final, students pitch their best business ideas. As part of this multi-stage competition, Goodbody asks students to focus on sustainability and award the top environmentally-friendly submission with the Goodbody Sustainability Award.

Currently, a business and economics final year student at Trinity College Dublin, Mr Walsh joined the company last November after seeing the potential to help brands make the switch away from plastic. 

The former St Brendan’s College student has been ‘key’ in educating Saor Water’s audience on why they should switch, and has ‘worked closely’ with clients to ‘solve the issues they faced with the lack of viable branded sustainable options for water’; that is according to the company’s founder, Ryan Ormonde.

Saor Water is Ireland’s first free beverage company with a mission to empower brands to form genuine, lasting connections with their audience. 

By offering a free, sustainable, and customisable beverage experience, the brand's innovative and sustainable approach to marketing has created a niche market for the company.

Just recently, the company took part in a Mayo student’s sustainability initiative.

Commenting on the award, Mr Ormonde, said: “It was a great honour to receive the Goodbody Sustainability Award on behalf of Saor Water at the ISEF Grand Final last week. Sustainability has always been at the heart of our mission, so it is great to be recognised with this award, with thanks to Goodbody and the event organisers, ISEF.”

With 75 percent of the aluminium that was produced in history still in circulation today, the founder said the brand’s mission is to ‘help brands ditch the bottle and move to a better alternative, aluminium’.

“Over the last 8 months, we’ve found that we’re not alone in wanting to ditch the bottle!

“Since our launch, we have helped companies across the UK and Ireland embrace sustainability and ditch plastic across many industries from cinema, radio, car dealerships and local food cafés through our bespoke branded aluminium canned water, helping to elevate their branded experience and their commitment to our planet,” he continued.

Laura Edgerton, Head of Internal Communications and Employer Branding at Goodbody said they were ‘very happy’ to award Saor Water with the Goodbody Sustainability Award at the ISEF Grand Final this year. 

“As part of our company’s commitment to the environment, we have an in-house working group who voted for this year’s winner, rating four projects on innovation, sustainability, business model, demand and feasibility of implementation. Saor Water came out on top, with a special nod to their branding and marketing – along with all the other factors we considered. 

“Goodbody has supported the ISEF for several years now, as we work closely with entrepreneurs in all aspects of our business, and we want to ensure we’re supporting future talent, so Irish innovation and industry can thrive. Saor Water showed strong potential to us – and they align closely with our commitment to sustainability as a firm,” she concluded.