2025 Shortlist

Kristan Bullett - Humans Not Robots
Humans Not Robots (HNR) empowers data-intensive industries such as media, telecom, and gaming to operate more sustainably and efficiently. Their innovative platform, HNR to ZERO, integrates AI and advanced analytics to deliver actionable insights into carbon emissions, power consumption, and operational costs. Through auditing, advisory services, and automation of optimizations, HNR helps businesses achieve up to a 30% reduction in environmental impact and 20% in cost savings. Founded by industry experts and headquartered in York, HNR is dedicated to advancing cleaner, faster, and more cost-effective digital supply chains, ensuring a balance between growth and sustainability for its partners worldwide.

Ian Miller - Modern Railway Magic
Model Railway Magic Ltd is a specialist retailer dedicated to serving the model railway community through two core brands: Train Trax – The UK’s leading supplier of Kato Unitrack and complementary model railway products and The Model Tree Shop – Offering a wide range of handcrafted scenic trees and landscaping materials to enhance model layouts and dioramas.

They provide hobbyists—from beginners to seasoned enthusiasts—with high-quality products, expert advice, and outstanding customer service. Operating primarily online, we’ve also expanded into in-person sales at model railway exhibitions across the UK, strengthening their connection with the community. The business is built on ethical values, customer focus, and a passion for supporting creativity within the hobby.

Molly - The Station Cinema
The Station in Richmond, North Yorkshire, is a vibrant community hub featuring a cinema, café, gallery, and shops. It’s a place to enjoy a film, food, and art, catch up over coffee, see exhibitions, shop for local produce, or share a meal with family and friends.

Sponsored by The Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York

The Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York has a long and prestigious history of promoting enterprise, entrepreneurship and commercial ventures. They are an active force in the economic development of the City of York and its surrounds and its members are drawn from a wide range of professions and industries.

McMillan and Associates
McMillan & Associates was founded by Natalie McMillian in 2018. Now a team of six, they provide businesses with a holistic approach to HR and Organisational Development services, offering consultation, HR support, Organisational Development, HR Training, Professional Coaching and Mediation. They are a team of highly experienced, pragmatic, and empathetic HR professionals who are passionate about making a difference to the businesses they work with. They provide a broad range of HR and people development services and solutions to help organisations get the most from their most valuable resource – their people.

Nidhoggr Mead
Nidhoggr Mead is the leading 100% honey meadery in the United Kingdom. They use traditional methods to recreate this ancient drink and transport it into the modern world. They create both still and sparkling mead in a variety of delicious flavours using all natural ingredients. With the ultimate goal to make mead the favoured drink for all once again, the Nidhoggr Mead mission transcends simply crafting a drink; it's about invoking the spirit of community and celebration that mead has embodied throughout the ages.

Open Velocity
Open Velocity is a marketing strategy consultancy helping businesses to accelerate their growth.  They're a team of senior marketing consultants, with decades of real-world strategic marketing experience, embracing the challenge of simplifying complexity and connecting meaningful audiences, and delivering future-focused strategies based on long-term growth.  Their marketing solutions deliver rigour and insight to give you the confidence to know your marketing works.  From evaluating what’s working and what’s not, to developing brand positioning and launch plans, helping teams execute, or running strategy training for agencies,  they customise solutions and make sure you’re headed in the right direction.

Supported by Barclays Eagle Labs

Barclays Eagle Labs supports founders and entrepreneurs to innovate and grow. They provide business support, growth programmes and events for the innovators, founders and entrepreneurs across Yorkshire.

Community Bees CIC
Community Bees CIC is the brain child of Michaela Shaw to change the lives of those people within the community who are severely affected by hoarding, providing them with individual tailored hands on practical support.  This isn't just encouraging and helping them to make their homes a safer welcoming home that they can be proud of, it goes much further to improve their emotional well-being, reducing their isolation and loneliness, opening up a whole new world of support and empathy through providing continuing support groups with judgemental free zones for hoarders, ex-hoarders, family and close friends.  

Door 84
Door 84 is a youth and community centre located in central York, offering a warm and vibrant space for all. The organisation supports the community through a variety of initiatives, including youth sessions, inclusive projects, a café, and a food bank—creating a ripple of positive impact that extends well beyond its doors.

Originally established as a youth centre over 80 years ago, Door 84 has since evolved into a trusted and well-known organisation, recognised for providing support and services to young people, adults with disabilities, and the wider local community.

The Recharge Hub
The Recharge Hub is York’s first dedicated fitness and wellness centre, offering innovative, affordable access to treatments once reserved for elite athletes — including Red Light Therapy, Ice Baths, Compression Boots, Infrared Sauna, and more. Created through a community-led renovation effort, the space now supports physical and mental wellbeing for people across York. With a fully equipped gym, coaching, wellness events, and a focus on inclusivity, The Recharge Hub is redefining how the city recharges. They exist to help people feel better, move better, and live well — together.

Sponsored by LNER

LNER is on a mission to transform rail travel.

Our new modern Azuma fleet of trains continue more than a hundred years of LNER tradition - setting new, higher standards in comfort, reliability and customer experience.

LNER calls at more than 50 stations along almost a thousand miles on the East Coast route, including major towns and cities between London, the East Midlands, Yorkshire, the North East of England and Scotland.  

Labskin
Labskin is at the forefront of skin research, pioneering innovative approaches to understanding skin responses. Labskin's unique human skin equivalent reacts to ingredients and products applied directly to the skin surface. This technology enables the measurement of irritation, inflammation, moisturization, anti-ageing effects, microbiome changes (such as anti-acne and anti-dandruff), and wound healing.

Labskin provides clients with a valuable alternative to testing on animals or human volunteers, offering the ability to collect statistically significant data. Its technology is designed to reduce the risks associated with active ingredient testing in the preclinical phase.

With a strong commitment to collaboration, Labskin actively seeks partnerships with both academia and industry to deliver the highest quality testing solutions that eliminate the need for animal or human patient involvement.

SealStop
SealStop is a British-manufactured water-saving device designed for filling buckets, troughs, and containers. It automatically shuts off the water flow once full, preventing waste, mess, and potential damage. Easy to use and requiring no installation or power, SealStop offers a simple yet effective solution for farms, equestrian yards, gardens, and beyond. By conserving water effortlessly, it helps users save time, money, and resources while supporting sustainable water usage.

VegoPak
VegoPak is a game-changing sustainable bio-polymer engineered to transform and replace traditional plastics, paving the way for a greener future. Made entirely from eco-friendly, renewable compounds, VegoPak offers a fully sustainable alternative that reduces environmental impact. Their mission is to help companies embrace sustainability and meet their corporate responsibility goals while creating a positive legacy for generations to come.

Vocabulous
Vocabulous is an innovative online resource to aid targeted vocabulary teaching in primary and secondary English lessons. Vocabulous uses Latin and Greek root words to teach word patterns. Students then use these patterns to work out the meaning of unknown words which share the same root. For example, the root “scrip” meaning “write” can help students understand “inscription”, “manuscript” and “prescription”. Vocabulous is founded by a teacher for teachers, with the aim of improving student outcomes in literacy. They are a small company with a social purpose, working to improve literacy and education outcomes for students across Yorkshire and beyond. 

Sponsored by Uber

We are Uber. The go-getters. The kind of people who are relentless about our mission to help people go anywhere and get anything and earn their way. Movement is what we power. It’s our lifeblood. It runs through our veins. It’s what gets us out of bed each morning. It pushes us to constantly reimagine how we can move better. For you. For all the places you want to go. For all the things you want to get. For all the ways you want to earn. Across the entire world. In real time. At the incredible speed of now.

Brightsparks Agency
Brightsparks Agency is a full service marketing agency specialising in creating behaviour change for social good. They work exclusively on social purpose projects, providing cutting edge digital and marketing services to start up, grow and improve the services they provide that make a difference to people’s lives and society.

Cooper King Distillery
Cooper King Distillery is a self-built, crowd-funded distillery in Sutton-on-the-Forest, York, producing sustainable spirits distilled with craftsmanship, honesty and adventure. It’s the first in England to produce carbon-negative gin and the first in Europe to join environmental initiative 1% for the Planet.

Producing gin, vodka and whisky, they run on 100% renewable energy and are champions of sustainability. They work closely with Yorkshire farmers, distil using locally grown grain and botanicals, opted for lightweight recycled glass bottles, developed plastic free postage and plant one square metre of UK woodland or wildflower habitat for every bottle sold.

LEaF Translations
LEaF Translations is a trailblazing translation company from York that was founded in 2017, aiming to prove that any type of business can be ethical. As one of the top performing SEO translation companies in the UK, LEaF demonstrates consistent sales growth while focusing on strong client relationships. Growth has been fully organic from the start thanks to its excellent reputation and word of mouth recommendations. With ethical values at its heart, it was the first translation company to become an accredited member of the Good Business Charter and continues to inspire other business owners, clients and competitors alike.

Sponsored by Nestlé

Nestlé’s purpose is to unlock the power of food to enhance the quality of life for everyone, today and for generations to come. We are proud to be part of the York community, and want to help shape a more sustainable world for people, families and pets, and for the planet. 

Ad Signal
Ad Signal provides first-of-its-kind SaaS development services centred on video, image and audio content and continues to grow exponentially. They have a number of different products at different stages of development, each one meeting a verified and urgent need in the content world. They work primarily in Media & Entertainment and every advert on UK TV goes through their products. Their products have a strong sustainability focus and could remove 1.34% of the world’s CO2E. 

English Learning Therapy
English Learning Therapy is an online language school dedicated to reducing social isolation among ESL speakers. They combine engaging English lessons with therapeutic activities that build learners’ confidence and empower them to use English in real-life situations. Their approach moves beyond native-speakerism and linguistic imperialism, embracing Global Englishes to help learners become confident global citizens in the language they speak.

Living 4 Moments
Living 4 Moments design and deliver bespoke training, consultancy, speaking and coaching services rooted in lived experience of disability—particularly severe/profound hearing loss—and informed by over two decades of professional expertise in community, care, inclusion and accessibility. They have conducted extensive research into good practices that make a big difference for employees and customers. Their mission is to empower people and organisations to remove barriers, create inclusive environments, and make informed, compassionate decisions that support everyone to thrive.

Sponsored by RTC North

About RTC North: For over 35 years RTC North has been delivering economic impact by helping small businesses to innovate, compete and grow across the North of England. Our dedicated team are the backbone of our success, strategically positioned across the north of the country. With offices in the North East, North West, and Yorkshire & Humber.  For more information, visit rtcnorth.co.uk