The China-Scotland Business Awards were announced and presented at the Chinese Burns Supper in Edinburgh on 8 February – with over 300 guests in attendance
Businesses were shortlisted across seven different categories: Marketing Campaign of the Year; ESG Champion of the Year; Professional Advisory of the Year; Scottish Corporate in Hong Kong 2024; Chinese Corporate of the Year; The Dragon Award for Pioneering Spirit; and Educational Partnership of the Year.
Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) won the newly launched Award for ‘Marketing Campaign of the Year’. The Award recognises ETAG’s success in launching Edinburgh’s first-ever Chinese social media campaign at the end of 2016 as part of its China Ready Programme to position Edinburgh as a must-visit destination and one of the most China-friendly destinations in the UK.
‘ESG Champion of the Year’ – sponsored by Diageo – was awarded to the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), whose mission is to ignite and nurture leadership in credible water stewardship through a market-based system that guides, recognises, and rewards good water stewardship practice. AWS’s first site to achieve certification to the AWS Standard in 2015 was Ecolab’s Taicang facility in the critically stressed Tai Hu basin. Since then, AWS has steadily enabled more major companies and their suppliers to adopt the AWS Standard in China and established a China Representative Office in Shanghai in 2023.
The Award for ‘Professional Advisory of the Year’ went to Burness Paull LLP, an independent law firm with a dedicated China Desk. Burness Paull LLP’s goal is to build upon its strong track record in advising Chinese clients and become the go-to firm for Chinese clients investing in Scotland and the wider UK by providing tailored services and comprehensive support to bridge cultural and business gaps between the UK and China.
Another new award category for 2024 was ‘Scottish Corporate in Hong Kong’, which was sponsored by InvestHK London. The winner was Museum Context Hong Kong, whose exciting new partnership with Edinburgh’s literary gem, Elephant House, will lead to the launch of Elephant House International Hong Kong in 2024, with a further US$3 million investment going to create a uniquely immersive experience bringing together Museum Context’s Edinburgh merchandise with the story of the Elephant House and sharing this with the people of Hong Kong.
‘Chinese Corporate of the Year’ was awarded to COES Caledonia (UK) Limited – a UK subsidiary of the Chinese maritime giant, the China Ocean Engineering Solutions Group (COES) – which has made significant investments in Scotland’s maritime sector. This investment in Scotland has been concentrated in state-of-the-art offshore construction engineering, heavy lift, deep sea dive, pipelay and subsea engineering, and new marine and offshore renewables vessels, totalling close to USD US$1 billion.
Another new category for this year’s ceremony was the ‘Dragon Award for Pioneering Spirit’, which was designed to recognise organisations pioneering partnerships between Scotland and China. Sponsored by Heriot-Watt University’s Scottish Confucius Institute for Business and Communication, the award went to Speech Graphics, which delivers pioneering facial animation technology to the entertainment industry. Over the past year, Speech Graphics has successfully deepened its connections between China and Scotland, notably establishing a partnership with GrowthEase, a leading provider of enterprise technology solutions in China.
Finally, the ‘Educational Partnership of the Year’ Award went to the Zhejiang University – University of Edinburgh Institute (ZJE). Established in 2016, ZJE is the University of Edinburgh’s flagship overseas institution for education and scientific research and is based in Haining, Zhejiang Province in China. A £1 billion investment has provided purpose-built, state-of-the-art research, teaching, accommodation, and recreation facilities. The partnership facilitates an ambitious global biomedical research agenda between two well-matched world-leading universities with a common vision to develop the next generation of biomedical scientists and support biomedical innovation.
Now going into its 11th year, CBBC’s Chinese Burns Supper, in partnership with the Confucius Institute for Scotland at the University of Edinburgh, has become a permanent fixture in the China-Scotland business calendar.
The event featured a fusion of Burns Night traditions with those of Chinese New Year as a backdrop for black-tie networking for the China-Scotland business and educational community. Guests were treated to a dynamic programme of entertainment, including the customary Address to a Haggis, a ‘Bian Lian’ (Face Changing) performance, a poetry recital of Earl of the River by Consul General Zhang Biao and Richard Lochhead MSP, and a Dragon Dance, amongst other performances.
Funds were raised to support The Eric Liddell 100 (EL100), a programme of events and activities to recognise and celebrate the life, sporting, and community service achievements of Eric Liddell. It is being planned around 2024, the centenary of his historic success at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris.
The Awards were generously supported and made possible by CBBC’s Partners and Sponsors: The Confucius Institute for Scotland at The University of Edinburgh; Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office; Scottish Enterprise; Scottish Development International; Heriot-Watt University; Diageo; Invest Hong Kong; Moutai China; Time Machine + Folks; Kinloch Anderson; Glencairn Crystal Studio Ltd; and Harris and Lewis Smokehouse.
The full list of Nominees for each award category is as follows:
Marketing Campaign of the Year
ESG Champion of the Year
Professional Advisory of the Year
Scottish Corporate in Hong Kong 2024
Chinese Corporate of the Year
Dragon Award for Pioneering Spirit
Educational Partnership of the Year