A Fishersgate label firm has won a national award for its green practices and was highly commended in another category.
The family firm, A4Labels.com Limited, was named Environmental Company of the Year at the Printweek Awards 2026 and was highly commended in SME of the Year category for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The business was started in a spare bedroom in 2010 and became a company with its first registered office in Brighton in 2011. It is estimated to be worth about £1 million.
And in the past few years, former King’s Manor pupil Colin Hawker, 52, the founder, has handed over the running of the business – based in Mill Road in Fishersgate – to his son Charlie, 25, who went to the same school although by then it had been renamed Shoreham Academy.
They turned the challenge of the covid-19 pandemic into an opportunity, with A4 Labels producing about four million sheets of labels each week for test-kit distribution around the country.
And the company donates 1 per cent of all sales to the environmental charity Seven Clean Seas, helping to fund the removal of plastic waste from the world’s oceans.
Locally, A4 Labels has backed green initiatives such as tree-planting in partnership with grassroots football clubs across Sussex and through the company’s unusual sponsorship deal with Portslade Cricket Club.
Charlie Hawker said: “We are continuing to build on our environmental commitments through our sponsorship of Portslade Cricket Club, turning local sport into meaningful environmental action.
“After a fantastic first year in 2025, we renewed the partnership for 2026 and will continue with our pledge to remove 1kg of ocean plastic for every 20 runs scored during the season.
“In 2025 alone, the initiative helped remove 409kg of plastic, clean 4,396 metres of coastline and fund four clean-up crew members providing 62 hours of fair-wage employment.
“Since January 2025, we’ve now supported the removal of more than 2.25 tonnes of plastic in total.
“It’s a brilliant way to engage the community, support grassroots sport and make a measurable difference to ocean health at the same time.”
The awards organisers said: “Sustainability is very much at the core of everything that A4 Labels does and it says something when it donates 1 per cent of sales to ocean plastic removal.
“Likewise, the company sponsors a cricket club where 20 runs equates to more monies donated to ocean plastic removal and staff are involved with a bee preservation charity and tree planting programmes.
“The philosophy is to do right by the environment but without greenwashing. Environmental responsibility ‘is not a bolt-on initiative or marketing exercise’.
“Indeed, the judges could not have been more effusive when they said: ‘The innovative initiatives were well beyond what we’d expect any print business to do.’”
The award comes as the business said that it had enjoyed strong growth while continuing to invest in “innovative eco-materials, responsible production practices and partnerships that deliver a measurable environmental impact”.
The company added: “The business supplies high-quality labels to household names including Lush, The Card Factory, Nando’s, Warner Brothers and Five Guys, as well as artisan producers across the UK.”
