Major United Nations Award

Winya was greatly honoured in achieving the United Nations Global Compact award for Sustainable Development Goals for the Economic Empowerment of Indigenous Peoples.

Winya was the first ever business to achieve this award that is one of ten globally.

“This is about as big an honour as it gets, being recognised on the world stage in the biggest week at the UN. As part of the United Nations Global Compact program we’re honoured in front of the Secretary General Antonio Guterres, The Deputy Sec general, the new Human Rights Commissioner and ex Chilean Prime Minister, the Presidents of South Africa, Botswana, the Crown Price of Norway and even Michael Douglas who is now a UN Peace Ambassador and hundreds of CEOs of major global companies.” Says Greg, Winya’s Director.

“I hope we can use this huge accolade to assist us in continuing to grow Winya. We have been growing at 100% each year, but it is getting harder each year as some of the bigger established companies now start to pretend that they are “Indigenous” to emulate what we have been doing. Imitation is supposedly the sincerest form of flattery but its taking a lot of money out of the market that we would have been using to employ more indigenous staff”.

The United Nations recognised the work that Winya is doing in the Indigenous community including its efforts in remote communities, prisons and with traineeships.

NSW State Business Awards

Winya recently achieved the best overall in Workplace Inclusion at the NSW State Business Awards. Winya was very proud to receive this award and be recognised for the work we are doing in regards to Indigenous employment, advancement and economic inclusion.

The team met Andrew O’Keefe and met with Clover Moore the Lord Mayor congratulated Winya on our win and our achievements throughout the year. We were very proud to have received this award and the acknowledgements in the Australian Financial Review.

Procurement and Supply Australasia Awards

Winya won the Supplier of the Year Award at the Procurement and Supply Australasia Awards. Out of many suppliers, Winya was shortlisted and presented to a panel of judges. Winya spoke about the importance of procurement managers and how they are one of the largest influences on delivering on corporate social responsibility and ethical specification.

Winya achieved the Supplier of the Year Award due to our ethical business practice and our involvement with Indigenous trainees both in our factories and within the Northern Territory prison system.

The award was awarded based upon our customer value driven services, our innovation both in our product e-Board which has previously been awarded for excellence and our business model which places sponsored Indigenous trainees throughout our factories in Australia and finally our insight on the value of procurement managers and how they are very much able to assist in the deliverance of corporate social responsibility on projects.

Indesign Sustainability Awards

Winya’s won an award for our brand new product e-Board! We won the Innovation and Application award at the 2018 Sustainability Awards. Our award sponsor was Viridian glass.

e-Board is created through a patented process which recycles melamine board to produce new board to make new furniture, which stops tens of thousands of tonnes of office furniture going to landfill. old desks are transformed into new desks.

The innovation continues into the completely closed loop supply model that supports the product now and way into the future.

e-Board’s life and chain of custody is recorded and mapped. The new desks become part of the next generation. This furniture data and barcoding system record the product life and keep mapping this each time these desks are returned and the melamine is made into new desks, allowing users to log on and see where their desk started its journey 30 years ago.

From the Judges: e-Board closes the loop on a terrifyingly wasteful process by capturing the furniture that is regularly discarded as offices are renovated and using it to create board for new furniture. Sustainable manufacturing processes further supports the beauty of the products.

City of Sydney Awards

Winya was very excited to attend the City of Sydney business awards where we thought we were only in the running for the Excellence in Sustainability Awards!

Little did we know we were in the running for two other awards.

Winya ended up being awarded not only the Excellence in Sustainability Award but also the Excellence in Workplace Diversity Award and the Excellence in Small Business Award!

At the end of the night Winya also achieved the overall award for best of the best at the City of Sydney Business Awards event.

We are very much looking forward to attending the official business regional awards in late November

Chartered Institute of Procurement Asia Pacific Awards

Winya attended the Chartered Institute of Procurement Asia Pacific Awards as it was a finalist in the category for the award for Best Contribution to Corporate Responsibility.

Winya was very honoured to have achieved this award and not only this award but also the overall award for the Best of the Best across all award categories!

Winya was very excited to begin the year with such a great honour.

Sustainability Awards

Winya achieved the Sustainability Award for our Arnhem custom timber range.

Salvaged timbers that would otherwise be burnt (or simply discarded) create Indigenous employment both in remote areas and apprenticeships in cities. Timber is sorted and graded and cut to basic furniture components, then shipped to Sydney, Brisbane or Perth for finishing and then manufactured into lounges. Winya places  Indigenous trainees and apprentices into factories across Australia where its products are made.

From the Judges:

The Arnhem range is a social and environmental collaboration with remote Northern Territory Indigenous landowners and a remote Indigenous mill to provide waste timbers off mine-site clearing to produce custom made soft seating. Salvaged timbers that would otherwise be wasted create Indigenous employment both in remote areas and apprenticeships in cities.

Banksia Awards

Winya won the largest trophy it’s ever seen at the Banksia Awards, we won the Indigenous Leadership for Sustainability Award. This award was the largest trophy we’ve ever seen! We’ve christened it the “Iron Throne” for obvious reasons.

From the judges:

Winya is the most socio-environmental focused furniture in Australia and it is a majority indigenous owned furniture company. The Arnhem range is a social and environmental collaboration with remote Northern Territory Indigenous land owners and a remote Indigenous mill to provide waste timbers off mine-site clearing to produce custom made soft seating. Salvaged timbers that would otherwise be burnt create Indigenous employment both in remote areas and apprenticeships in cities. Timber is sorted from mine clearing and graded and cut to basic furniture components, then shipped to Sydney for finishing and manufacture into lounges in factories where we place our Indigenous trainees on apprenticeships.

Winya Indigenous furniture through Carol Vale is running a program which focuses on indigenous empowerment in business.

Winya is proud to be supporting the presentation of  ‘The Morning Sky Project’ workshop which centers around the economic empowerment of indigenous women in business through motivation and inspiration. Carol will be discussing areas of cultural diversity training, indigenous culture and women empowerment through this year’s theme “because of her we can.” 

Carol Vale is a Dunghutti/Gumbaingirr woman from NSW who has a strong reputation for developing culturally respectful and innovative responses to the complex and varied issues which affect Indigenous communities today. However, who through fortunate circumstances and persistence created a career in government spanning three decades.

Carol has extensive hands-on-experience and theoretical understanding across a broad range of portfolios,
relevant to Aboriginal affairs, including social policy, education, housing, health, community development,
impact of incarceration and justice, disabilities and child protection.

Each year the army engineer corps volunteers their service on a remote Indigenous community project. The 2016 project was in Laura in far north Queensland.