British Sugar's York factory has yet again proved it is a heavyweight contender in the 2004 Evening Press Business of the Year competition.

Last year the factory in Boroughbridge Road scooped the title, Best Business and Education Link. This time it is targeting the Best Environmental Company accolade.

S is for Sugar, but also Sustainability. Nothing is wasted. The beet, after sugar is extracted, is marketed for high energy animal feed. Molasses by product is used as feedstock by the fermentation industry. Whatever soil is brushed from beet is marketed to landscapers and farmers as well as Elvington turf growers, Rolawn.

Then there are the lime products produced as part of the purification process which are sold under the LimeX brand for soil conditioning - 58,000 tonnes of it. Even stones delivered with the beet are graded and sold to the construction industry - in civil engineering and road construction.

Even some of the York plant's own new road works on site were created with aggregate crushed from these stones.. And about 500 tonnes a year of greenery like leaves, weeds and straw is supplied to an offsite composting company to make agricultural products grow again. This year the factoryb is considering carrying out the operation on site.

The green message is getting through. The story of sustainability in the sugar process has been used as a case study at several environmental conferences, including the Business and Environment conference at the Central Science Laboratory in Sand Hutton and the City of York Council's Agenda 21 briefings.

Its practice of "wasting nothing" was also studied by schools from York and North Yorkshire at the Earth Summit at Conisborough Earth Centre, where British Sugar was held up as a shining example of green thinking.

The factory's environmental management system has been externally accredited to the world-recognised ISO14001 standard.

Updated: 11:27 Friday, July 30, 2004