STAFF at Crown Paints are celebrating after winning a major award for being green and helping community causes.

The Darwen-based company secured the Grichan Partnerships Sustainable Business Award in the 2015 Lloyds Bank National Business Awards.

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The judges recognised the company’s pioneering Earthbalance sustainability programme, which features a target to reduce Crown’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Joe Devitt, managing director of Crown, said the company always thought beyond creating paint and said the award reflected that.

He said: “We are absolutely delighted with this news.

“It’s a testimony to all the hard work the team have put in across the entire business.

“Crown’s brand is focused on the fact that ‘it’s not just paint, it’s personal’.

“Our business is as much about our people as our products and that’s reflected in the way our staff, suppliers and clients have supported the activity.”

Crown has been manufacturing paint in the UK for more than 200 years and has 1,250 employees across its headquarters in Darwen and the site in Hull, as well as a network of more than 130 decorating centres across the UK and Ireland.

Earthbalance unites a number of initiatives, including the award-winning Kick Out The Can recycling community scheme where people were encouraged to return any unused paint to their local Crown decorating centre.

Geraldine Huxley, customer services director, said the paint had been put to good use and the campaign had showed off Crown’s innovation.

She said: “The recycled paint is transforming community halls, youth and sport centres and green spaces.”

Richard Hewitt, from The Grichan Partnership, said Crown was unique in the way it had strived for green goals.

He said: “We found that Crown Paints were exceptional in the way that they promoted sustainability throughout their business.

“They not only showed us how the projects they are involved in are truly transformational, but have inspired us all here on the judging panel. We would like to congratulate them on winning this award.”

Presented by Sky News’ Ian King and Poppy Trowbridge, the awards at Park Lane’s Grosvenor Hotel in London played host to 1,200 business leaders and welcomed former astronaut and second man on the moon Buzz Aldrin as headline speaker.

It is the latest award for the company after it won the Future Manufacturing Awards Environmental Excellence title for the North West earlier this year.