By Elly Edwards

A LOCAL cake maker has been recognised for its environmentally friendly efforts with a green award from Glastonbury Festival.

Honeybuns, based in Holwell, won silver in the food category Green Traders Awards, taking a case of champagne and a banner to put on their stall next year. This was the fourth year of the Green Traders Awards, which aims to recognise Glastonbury traders who have done the most to give their businesses a low environmental impact. It is organised by Glastonbury Festival, Greenpeace, The soil Association and the Fairtrade Foundation.

Honeybuns has an individual approach to green business practice, considering the obvious and not so obvious. This include its Bee Green project involves the Honeybuns team planting different trees and hedgerows, and woven willow bird feeders which encourages different species of birds to live there.

The team is also making eco-adjustments inside too, with a new toilet for the Bee Shack cafe which will use harvested rain water, and the instillation of solar panelled security lights. Honeybuns is always looking for ways to make its packaging more environmentally friendly, using card from a sustainable source, printed with vegetable based inks so it is recyclable and the wrapping is a bio-degradbale film.

Matt Goss-Custard, accounts and website coordinator at Honeybuns, said of the success: "This is the first official recognition of the environmental work we do at Honeybuns, and ethical trading. It is nice to be recognised in this way, as we did not seek the award but they chose us. The banner will make a nice feature, and we will hang it at the next Glastonbury."

This year also saw the introduction of three new green trader awards- one presented by the Fairtrade Foundation to the trader doing the most to promote the fairtrade ethos; a best organic trader award presented by the Soil Association; and a new most improved category.

For more details about the award, visit www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/news/2009green-traders-award