Environmental Awards

Greater Wellington would like to recognise and reward some of the extraordinary work that people are doing in partnership with us to improve the health of the environment throughout the Wellington region.

The GW Environmental Awards are eight awards that recognise the community groups, schools and businesses working in partnership with us to enhance the environment and build a more sustainable region.

Two of the awards target schools with the Meridian Environmental School Leadership Award and the Meridian School Sustainable Project Award. The first will recognise one key person's leadership on a school-wide environmental project. The second will go to a school that is working with us on one of our programmes such as Take Action, or Trees for Survival, or on a project in our regional parks or with a community group.

We would also like to recognise the work a wide range of community groups do with us with the Rata Community Partnership Award. We work with and support many community groups through our Take Care programme, projects in our regional parks, sustainable transport initiatives, and our flood protection responsibilities and land management programmes.The Community Leadership Award is a new award in 2009 and recognises the contribution of a community member who has been working with Greater Wellington to improve the environmental health of their community and the wider Wellington region.

The Nikau Compliance Award will acknowledge how consent holders can have a huge impact on our environment and some develop incredibly innovative and inspiring solutions to reduce the impact of their activities on the environment. This award will recognise a consent holder for going above and beyond the conditions of their consent to minimise its environmental effects as well as managing any associated environmental impacts that are not specifically covered by the consent.The Environmental Protection Award is another new award for 2009 and acknowledges small and medium sized businesses working with us to prevent pollution and improve environmental management.

This year there are also two new categories for businesses working with us to adopt more sustainable practices. The Business Environmental Leadership Award recognises businesses working with Greater Wellington to improve their environmental performance and reduce their carbon emissions, while the Green Business Award acknowledges businesses that have recently started working with us (less than one year) but that are nevertheless making significant improvements in their sustainability.

This is the third year of Greater Wellington's Environmental Awards. For details of last year's winners click here. For full details on the winners from 2007 read the media release.