Pavegen floor tiles recognised at Ethical Business Awards

Laurence Kemball-Cook, now the chief executive officer of Pavegen Systems, developed the flooring system, which converts the kinetic energy of footfall into electricity.

It was chosen by a committee of influential figures in the sustainable business committee to win the ‘Big Idea’ category at the prestigious Ethical Business Awards, hosted by The Observer newspaper.

Accepting the £2,000 award from Chris Murray and Lucy Siegle, the National Grid’s Climate Change Champion for Transmission, Kemball-Cook said: ‘We are at a crucial stage as we grow the company from a start-up into a fully fledged deliverer of renewable energy solutions, and being under the spotlight means that even more of our potential partners will appreciate the very real opportunity that our energy-generating paving systems represent for towns and cities all over the world.’

Although only a young company, Pavegen’s low-carbon indoor and outdoor lighting technology has already won an order from Westfield for its new headline Olympic site in Stratford City — to be the largest urban shopping centre in Europe. Pavegen is a key element in helping them to achieve their strict targets for environmental sustainability. And in December 2010, the Simon Langton school in Canterbury installed the energy-harvesting floor tiles in one of its busiest corridors.