Royal Cosun, Lagemaat Sloopwerken, and Fairphone won the Koning Willem I Prize 2024 this evening. They received the ‘Oscar’ of Dutch business from the hands of honorary president Queen Máxima and chairman and president of De Nederlandsche Bank, Klaas Knot. The ceremony took place in Theater De Spiegel in Zwolle.
“With these awards, we stimulate creativity and innovation and strengthen mutual contacts between companies,” Klaas Knot said. “Tonight’s finalists are the best examples of good and healthy entrepreneurship.” Agrarian Cooperative Royal Cosun from Breda won the Large Business category. Lagemaat Sloopwerken from Heerde was voted the best SME in the country, and Amsterdam-based Fairphone won the Plaque for Sustainable Entrepreneurship. Queen Máxima congratulated the three winners, who, according to the jury, are “passionately committed to a circular economy and the transformation of their industry.
The Koning Willem I Award is awarded every two years to a large company, an SME, or a company with a sharp focus on Sustainable Entrepreneurship. The jury consists of prominent figures from the Dutch business world.
Royal Cosun – Breda
Royal Cosun is an internationally operating agricultural cooperative founded in 1899 and owned by some 8,100 sugar beet growers. Cosun produces plant-based food and food ingredients, animal feed, biobased ingredients, and green energy from plants and residual streams. Its mission is to extract everything from the plant and thus offer solutions to social challenges in food and climate.
The professional jury was impressed by Cosun’s strong, socially relevant transition from its traditional focus on sugar beets and potatoes and appreciated the ambitious plan and measurable success in the field of sustainable transition.
Lagemaat Sloopwerken – Heerde
Lagemaat Sloopwerken is a traditional demolition company that has developed into a leader in the circular dismantling of buildings in recent years. In the transition from a linear to a circular construction economy, buildings are no longer reduced to raw materials (construction demolition waste) at the end of their useful life; instead, building components are mined to be used as parts for new construction. For this purpose, the existing building is modeled in 3D with digital tools.
The professional jury was impressed by the drive to change the traditional demolition sector sustainably, the good operating results and the will to be and remain a forerunner. Moreover, Lagemaat explicitly works with workers with a disadvantage in the labor market and seeks cooperation in a broader social respect (with government, universities, and other stakeholders).
Fairphone – Amsterdam
Fairphone offers sustainable smartphones, modular designs and delivered with eight years of guaranteed software support. This saves resources, reduces emissions and improves the repairability and recyclability of the products. Thus, existing phones can be used much longer, fewer new phones need to be produced and the ecological footprint of a smartphone is reduced.
The professional jury admires the perseverance of this game-changer who has successfully brought a disruptive product to the market against all odds. Fairphone is the only Dutch phone manufacturer and a global leader in sustainable consumer electronics. It is a role model for the entire industry in its quest for fairer electronics.
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