Michael Alan Cooper, founder and director of Waste to Wonder Worldwide, has been awarded an OBE for services to sustainability and social enterprise.
Mr Cooper said he was surprised after receiving a letter from the Cabinet Office on 22 November confirming the honour.
The award follows more than two decades of work focused on changing perceptions around waste and promoting reuse over disposal.
Over the past 23 years, Waste to Wonder Worldwide has grown into a global operation redistributing surplus office furniture and equipment to schools, charities and community projects.
The organisation has supported projects in 47 countries, including the UK, across Africa, Asia and Europe.
To date, it has donated the fair market value equivalent of more than £49 million in furniture and equipment, while diverting thousands of tonnes of items from landfill.
Waste to Wonder Worldwide operates as a certified social enterprise, providing ethical office clearance and relocation services to businesses of all sizes.
Around 97 per cent of items collected by the organisation are reused rather than recycled or disposed of, with impact reporting used to support corporate environmental, social and governance goals.
One of its flagship initiatives, the School in a Box programme, has helped equip more than 1,500 schools with furniture and resources to create usable learning environments.
Reflecting on the honour, Michael Alan Cooper said:
“Changing how we see and use redundant items isn’t just about sustainability, it’s about dignity, opportunity and the belief that every company and every individual can use their resources to improve lives we may never meet.”
Looking ahead, he spoke about the wider responsibility of businesses to drive positive change.
“Running a company brings with it many opportunities: to actively support customers, to embrace every skill and idea from colleagues, and the privilege of working alongside valued partners,” he said.
“It also evokes individual responsibility to do positive things further afield. Every person and certainly every company can now truly have a worldwide reach. Companies and employees will be able to sit down in 2026 to plan how they can benefit others, whom they may never meet, by using their company as the catalyst to improve lives across the entire globe.”
The honour also recognises the organisation’s contribution to the circular economy, embedding social and environmental purpose into its commercial model.
Mr Cooper said the guiding principle of the work remained clear, describing it as “nil magnum nisi bonum” – nothing is great except good.
