Wandsworth environmentalists fared well at the Green Guardian Awards on Friday, winning in the Green Concept category, picking up the Green Champion south-west winner and receiving a highly commended nod in for Green Business.

Hermione Taylor won the Green Concept category by flipping the traditional concept of charity sponsorship on its head.

Her interactive website encourages sponsors to reduce carbon emissions by asking sponsors to take steps to modify their behaviour.

In the process this awakens participants to climate change issues - and shows how simple pledges can help save the planet.

Hermione, 26, from Battersea, said: “It was pretty exciting and a really fun evening. It was reassuring to see they recognised the potential of Just Saving, even though it is in its early days.

“I have always believed it could have a really strong future and the award will hopefully help to mobilise a huge shift in carbon emissions in the future, and help hundreds of thousands of people get involved.

“It was really interesting to meet people from 10 10, hopefully lead to good things.

“I am now trying to get funding behind me and get more and more support.”

Lucy Neal was crowned south west London Green Champion for her role as co-chairwoman of Transition Town Tooting (TTT) - one of 200 similar initiatives around the country which are working to help communities adapt to the challenges of decreasing oil and climate change.

Drawing on decades of experience as an arts producer, she has helped turn TTT into a driving force for change - one cited at the Copenhagen climate conference as an example of how the arts can influence policy.

Last year the group won funding for its Trashcatchers' Carnival due to be held in July this year, which, by using recycling as a metaphor, will see 60 artists working with 500 local residents to build a vision of a low-energy future.

Lucy said the award would give her “the courage to encourage people”.

“We all need to be encouraged to see what we are capable of,” she said. “We are all on a road that we are all going down together and we are going to meet a lot of other people and learn from them.

As a result of the awards we all feel very hopeful.”

Putney based Devereux Architects were commended in the Green Business category, which, the company, said would give it confidence to continue on its green path.

Dennis Silva, quality and environmental coordinator, said: “The award was a great opportunity to show everyone we are on the right track and motivation to keep everyone going,” he said. “We are now working to get our ISO 1401 [Environmental Management Standard] certification and that is a great step for us.

“In terms of projects we have a sustainability group in the practice looking to improve environmental performance., but there is a lot of work to do.

“We are running a peoples’ behaviour and awareness campaign to make it even better and we have regular talks from external experts about how we can improve.”

Wandsworth council’s executive member for the environment, Councillor Sarah McDermott, attended the event and congratulated all the finalists.

She said: “Well done to all our winners. Lucy Neil’s award shows great confidence in what she is about to do, well done to Devereux and well done to Hermione Taylor for her very innovative idea.

“The awards were very positive and I’m glad Wandsworth Council was again involved.

“It advertises Wandsworth across a wider area and it is good to see how we are comparing to other boroughs.”

Click here to read more about the awards, view a gallery of pictures and watch a video of events