2015 Banksia Sustainability Awards announced

The winners of the 2015 Banksia Sustainability Awards have been announced. The awards were established by the Banksia Foundation in 1989 in order to identify leading initiatives which prove we are working towards a more sustainable Australia.

The prestigious Banksia Gold Sustainability Award was won by South Australian small business Kalleske Wines, which, according to the judges, approached sustainability using a ‘whole business model’. The company’s energy efficiency and use of solar technologies has made it a leading net exporter of electricity in Australia, while its water use is nearly 50% more efficient than the Australian winery benchmark. The judges say Kalleske has applied science and innovation to the way it manages its farm, crop and wine.

Meanwhile, Lendlease was announced as the winner of the Building, Landscapes and Infrastructure award for Barangaroo Reserve. The 6 ha park involved the re-creation of a naturalistic headland designed to mimic the pre-1836 shoreline on the western edge of Sydney’s CBD. The park’s sustainability achievements are as follows:

• 98% of excavated fill material, or 200,000 m³, has been re-used within the park.
• The space beneath the underground car park serves as the final location for an integrated water re-use system, which captures, treats, stores and re-uses seepage and stormwater for irrigation of the park.
• A special soil containing crushed sandstone from recycled waste was especially manufactured for the park to replicate the sandy texture of the original headland.
• A planting program comprising 675 trees, 2200 shrubs and 75,000 plants, all native to Sydney, has been very successful.

Other category winners ranged from community groups, SMBs, government educational programs and local councils through to large corporations. The diversity in sustainability leadership illustrates that Australians, whether individually or through business, are collectively contributing to a worldwide push to provide innovative solutions and are, more importantly, rolling up their own sleeves to do so.

The full list of 2015 winners and finalists can be viewed at http://banksiafdn.com/2015-winners-and-finalists/.

Image caption: An aerial shot of the award-winning Barangaroo Reserve.