Queen’s Award for Bridge of Weir
23 April 2012Upholstery leather maker, Bridge of Weir from Scotland have been awarded their fourth Queen’s Award for Enterprise following previous honours in 1985, 1996 and 2000.The award is for export sales performance, technological development, increased global presence and environmental sustainability with their unique brand of Low Carbon Leather.
Total Bridge of Weir Leather Company sales increased by 150% during the three years to September 2011, and 90% of production was exported.
The award, for international trade, was announced on April 21 – the Queen’s birthday, and the year she celebrates the Diamond Jubilee (1952 – 2012). Bridge of Weir Leather Company will hold the honour for the next five years.
Bridge of Weir Leather’s primary commercial focus is on the global automotive industry. The company’s appeal also extends beyond the automotive sector, with the Scottish leather found in luxury yachts, private aircraft, some of the world’s finest restaurants and hotels and on premium mobile telephone handsets.
Bridge of Weir, Chairman, Jonathan Muirhead, said: ‘It is a great honour to be recognised once again by the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. Bridge of Weir Leather is now a major export business, with 90% of production sold overseas. We have experienced very significant growth in recent years, with total sales up 150% and our unique Low Carbon Leather representing innovative British manufacturing techniques in over 60 countries around the world.’
Established in 1905, and now a subsidiary of the Scottish Leather Group, the company boasts Europe’s most advanced leather production facilities, and since the opening of an all-new thermal energy plant in 2010, the ‘greenest’ as well. The thermal energy plant underpins Bridge of Weir’s production process, and as the only one of its kind in the world leather industry, takes what was previously waste sent to landfill, and converts it directly to energy for heating the large volumes of recycled water required in leather manufacturing. The result is the world’s first truly Low Carbon Leather product.
With investments in a joint venture production facility in China, manufacturing operations in Mexico and a sales office in Detroit, Bridge of Weir Leather has become a truly global player in the automotive sector. Its automotive client base now includes Aston Martin, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Lincoln, Mercedes AMG, Volvo and most recently Fisker and Infiniti – in keeping with these manufacturers’ plug-in hybrid model values with their Low Carbon Leather.
