Paper Industry Gold Awards 

The Paper Industry Gold Awards celebrate excellence, innovation and leadership across the UK’s Paper-based Industries, recognising outstanding achievement by organisations and individuals from across the sector.

Following a review by the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI), the Awards will move to a biennial cycle, with the next ceremony scheduled for 2027. This change aligns the Awards with CPI’s Biennial Health and Safety Conference, supporting a more balanced and sustainable programme of major industry events, and ensuring each can be delivered with the time, focus and quality they deserve.

At the heart of the Awards is the Paper Industry Gold Medal, the highest individual honour within the UK’s Paper-based Industries. Established in the late 1960s, the Gold Medal recognises individuals who have made an exceptional contribution to the sector, going beyond their role within any single organisation to further the interests of the industry as a whole.

CPI will maintain engagement and promotion throughout 2026, with further details on the 2027 Awards, including categories, entry and event arrangements, to be launched later this year.

Winners
Click on each of the Awards below to find out who won in 2025.

  • Recycling Award

    This award aims to identify successful projects, initiatives, and campaigns run by paper-based companies to enhance recycling and more broadly contribute to the UK’s sustainability through activities supporting paper and board recycling.

    Winner -Saica Pack, Hartlepool

    Saica Pack won this award by showing a strong commitment to the circular economy, not only for the paper it manages, but also for the avoidance of landfilling of all of the other products and materials used in its manufacturing processes.

  • Sustainable Innovation & Net Zero Award

    The Sustainable Innovation & Net Zero Award recognises the innovative work of companies in the industry. Companies were invited to enter specific projects or initiatives which are pioneering in the field, and which will benefit the future of the industry by making the production process more efficient, sustainable, decarbonising and minimising the wider impact on our environment. The award is designed to acknowledge the work of businesses which are going above and beyond in their pursuit of a sustainable future. 

    Winners – Holmen Board and Paper/UPM Caledonian for their Flue2Chem Project

    In the opinion of the judges, this year’s winner showed the best of industry cooperation to achieve a major sustainability goal, and turn a harmful emission into another industry’s raw material.

  • Community Engagement Award

    The Award is for a company which has clearly demonstrated an outstanding and successful Community Engagement campaign which has had a positive effect on the public at large or specific groups.

    Winner - Essity Prudhoe Mill

    Our winner this year came from a site that is engaged in its community at all levels, from apprentices repairing park fences, to charity donations, and from planting trees in a nearby animal charity, to supporting Christmas presents for local children.

  • Health and Safety Award

    This award recognises companies that have gone above and beyond to ensure a safer and healthier working environment for their staff, whether that be through innovative safety projects or initiatives to support the health of their staff. The quality of the submissions this year was such that the judges decided to make two Highly Commended and one Overall Winner awards. 
     
    Winner - Essity Oakenholt Mill

    This year’s winner, in the Health and Safety Awards, goes to Essity Oakenholt mill who's site safety video took an innovative and inclusive approach to health and safety promotion. 


    Highly Commended - DS Smith Kemsley
    For their Health and Wellbeing days. 

    Highly Commended - WEPA UK
    For their reset of their health and safety governance. 

  • Skills Award

    The Skills Award will recognise a company that has made a significant investment in skills development and training. Companies can enter specific programmes or initiatives which focus on the development of skills within their workforces and which benefit the future development of the industry by facilitating innovation, greater sustainability and the attractiveness of the industry to new recruits.

    Winner - DS Smith

    For their cross-company Leadership Unpacked initiative.






  • EDI Award

    The EDI award recognises a company or individual who has demonstrated exceptional commitment to the promotion of EDI. The more diverse and inclusive the industry can become, the more it will serve the industry in building a resilient work force fit for the future.

    Winner - DS Smith

    Our winner comes from a company whose EDI programme covers issues as wide as a veterans community network, a partnership with Workplace Pride and support for neurodiverse colleagues, among many others, backed up by a company wide management process. 

    Highly Commended - Smurfit Westrock UKI Corrugated
    For their RISE Female Development Programme

  • Young Talent Award

    New for 2025 is our Young Talent Award. This celebrates the future of our industry by recognising exceptional young professionals in their field. So impressive were the entries, two highly commended and two winners were announced.
     
    Winners - Filip Kisiel from Smurfit Westrock and Josephine Cooper from DS Smith.

    Highly Commended - Firas Nasar from Northwood Tissue and Izzy Pearce from DS Smith.

  • Apprenticeship Presentation

    Over the last three years, CPI – in conjunction with Cogent Skills and Catch UK - has been leading an apprenticeship programme in papermaking, with the express objective of supporting the industry in meeting its skills needs for the future. The first cohort of apprentices has reached the end of their studies.

    Lewis Watson from Palm Paper, Alex Petrie from Saica Paper, Thomas Hirst from Weidmann Whiteley and Jacob Etchells and Felicia Morgan from Kimberly Clark.      

    There were two further apprentices that received special commendations for their performance and academic achievement during their apprenticeship programme. 

    Dominic Ely from Palm Paper for a commendation for outstanding academic achievement.

    Michael Smith from Saica Paper UK for a commendation of Apprentice of the Year for exceptional performance.

     






















  • The Paper Gold Medal Award

    The Paper Gold Medal is now over 50 years old and is presented annually to an individual, in recognition of personal excellence and achievement beyond their normal duties, who has made a unique contribution to the UK’s Paper-based Industries. 

    This year’s Gold Medallist has made a remarkable contribution to the UK’s paper-based and printing industries, not only through his 25-year career with BPIF but especially through extensive voluntary work. Even after retiring in 2024, he remains an active industry advocate, focusing on mentoring young people and promoting careers in print. 

    Over more than 20 years of volunteering with the Prince’s Trust (now the King’s Trust), he has helped nearly 50 disadvantaged young people access enterprise support for careers in print-related fields.

     

    The 2025 Paper Gold Medallist is Robert McClements.















    Congratulations to all!

Paper Industry Gold Awards 2025

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