OGUK and Step Change in Safety have announced the finalists for this year's Awards.

Subsea pipelines are vital for the oil and gas business, and so their maintenance should be a top priority. Maintaining these important networks not only fall in line with the necessary safety regulations, but also with legal compliance. Businesses in this sector must have the correct flow assurance technology in place in order to monitor pipeline integrity and seek out any potential issues quickly. Not only must the process be highly accurate, it must also operate with minimal impact on operating pipelines.

Dr Conaill Soraghan, ORE Catapult

Our oceans are blighted with plastic waste. Globally, we're creating over 300 million tonnes of plastic every year, as it is a cheap and adaptable form of packaging. But its ease of use is coming at a cost we cannot afford to pay any longer - our seas and our sea life are being poisoned by plastic. In 2015, 322 million tonnes of plastic, enough to weigh the same as 900 Empire State Buildings, was produced.

Businesses across the UK can receive a major impact if a machine were to break down. If the right preparations aren’t implemented, technical disturbances to appliances can have a significant detrimental impact on the productivity and profit margin of a business. A field service management firm called Oneserve had commissioned a study, with the collaboration of UK manufacturers; machine downtime costs the UK approximately £18 billion a year.