Premier Award 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Ballymena Borough Council - ECOS Millennium Environment Centre
The ECOS Centre has the simple aim: "to promote a sustainable future". The £10m project, funded by the Millennium Commission and Balymena Borough Council, has a striking Visitor Centre at its core which brings together numerous aspects of sustainable development.
The building comprises public areas including a cafeteria, several large display and activity areas, meeting rooms, offices and conference facilities. It generates 70% of its own energy requirements, with a biomass production and boiler system which is on view to the visiting public, a 20Kw wind turbine and Ireland's largest array of photovoltaic cells and solar water heating panels.
Some 40,000 visitors are already visiting the Centre annually and the current development is to enhance the 150 acres of under-utilised urban fringe wetland around the Centre. Other developments relate to the displays which are of an extremely high standard - which expose the variety of visitors to the principles of sustainability. The Centre boasts what is said to be the largest plastic bottle recycling facility in the world. Special efforts are being made to involve businesses through providing facilities and corporate events at the Centre.
The Centre has a Steering Group involving the local community, but it is Ballymena Borough Council that has provided the vision and leadership. The Ecos Centre is unique in Northern Ireland and it is difficult to imagine a project on this scale ever coming about in the Province without the involvement of a public agency. Ballymena Borough Council has created this exemplary Centre that is doing a magnificent job "promoting a sustainable future".
www.ecoscentre.com
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Premier Award 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Sony UK Ltd - Commitment to Community Activities
Sony UK have featured previously in the BCE awards, for processes and for an exemplary building project. This year the entry related to the involvement of the workforce in outside activities, particularly those of an environmental nature.
Our Assessors nevertheless looked at the company's environmental policy and practice, including visiting the Sony UK Sales & Marketing Headquarters at Weybridge. Here the company has used a brownfield site to build accommodation for some 1200 staff - creating a building which achieved the highest score under BREAM (the Building Research Establishments Environmental Assessment method).
Sony's Global Environmental Policy has now become the Sony Environmental Vision: "Sony recognises that conservation of the global environment is one of the greatest tasks facing humanity in the 21st century. Through continuous technological innovation and new business initiatives Sony intends to contribute positively to the natural environment and the dreams of future generations. Recognising the utmost importance of the global environment, the Sony Group's top business priority is sustainable development, utilising Sony's environmental resources in a manner that will allow future generations to achieve their potential in health, wealth & happiness. Sony aims to show that it is possible to achieve a new balance between humankind and nature by doing more with less, reducing the environmental impact from its use of energy and resources, while providing its customers with high quality, high performance products and services. Sony employees will be encouraged to study constantly to learn about a broad variety of environmental issues and will also co-operate closely and continuously with stakeholders in a joint quest to improve the world we share".
www.sony.co.uk
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Premier Award 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Kelling Heath - Kelling Heath Eco-Tourism Park
Kelling Heath Holiday Park is located in 250 acres of woodland and heathland in an area of outstanding natural beauty close to the North Norfolk coastline at Weybourne. It has developed an enormously successful business (with over 80% customer retention) through recognising that "People know that when they visit Kelling, the natural environment they come for is being professionally and responsibly cared for. This fact in its own right attracts people back to the site".
In 1996 a full time countryside Manager was appointed and the subsequent development of environmental management systems for the Park have created ongoing habitat and biodiversity improvements. The Park has produced a unique 'Pitch Design and Management guide' for its 400 pitches, ensuring co-operation by residents in helping preserve the natural environment.
The Park is continually improving the quality of its facilities. When it invested in a new leisure complex it did this in an environmentally sensitive way centering developments in a village square thereby minimising the impact on the Park's environment. Cycle routes and orienteering courses have been created, there is a red squirrel breeding programme on site and a programme of conservation activities is organised, from pond dipping in what David Bellamy called "the best lowland pond I have seen in years" to bird box construction.
Kelling Heath promotes "A unique holiday experience". It sees itself as a role model for caravan park development and it is a prime example of conservation and commerce working hand in hand. Our Assessor summarised Kelling Heath as "A fantastic, well thought-out and sustainable Holiday Park - an example to the rest of the industry".
www.kellingheath.co.uk
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Premier Award 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
British Gas - Think Energy Skills Programme
The Think Energy programme is the UK's biggest energy education programme for 7-14 year olds, on course to reach 1 million young people in primary and secondary schools throughout Great Britain.
Education materials have been developed for two age groups - 7-11 and 11-14, concentrating on educating and raising awareness of energy efficiency while supporting the science curriculum in schools. The materials combine classroom and home study and parents also have the opportunity to get involved by working with their children on an energy efficiency survey of their home.
Think Energy addresses the need to educate the future generation on energy efficiency and the importance of caring for our environment - in an engaging and effective manner. It recognises the opportunity for children to take what they have learnt home and with their parents to immediately start making a real difference to their energy consumption and thus to the environment.
British Gas have featured in previous BCE awards, with excellent environmental policies and practices. Think Energy received "top marks" from the BCE assessors for its vision, its effectiveness - and for its scale - sponsorship of BBC Tomorrows World Science Technology and Engineering Roadshow, and 1 million schoolchildren and their parents engaged.
www.think-energy.com
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Premier Award 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Green Business Network - Calderdale & Kirklees SME Initiatives
The Green Business Network was established in West Yorkshire in 1995 as a not-for-profit organisation with a remit to assist Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in improving their environmental performance. The Network has to date assisted in excess of 500 improvement projects, gaining a reputation for delivering cost-effective practical solutions to industry's environmental problems.
But the Network has done more than this - seeing the opportunities to link its assisting business with developing community enterprise. £1.75m landfill tax credits were secured to assist this, enabling the Network to help a range of community organisations turn their ideas into reality.
Two specific projects illustrated the Network's innovative approach. Firstly, the Network linked with Pennine Magpie, a Halifax-based community project for people with learning disabilities with Interface, Europe's largest carpet tile manufacturer (and a past BCE winner). The result is a carpet tile recycling project, involving 30 disabled adults deep cleaning and selling on over 10,000 tiles. This reduces landfill by 1000 tonnes a year as well as assisting community enterprise.
The second example of the Network's activity is the ABLE project near Huddersfield - a closed loop recycling scheme which collects waste cardboard from local companies, shreds them for use as animal bedding, then composts the used bedding using worms to create vermiculture compost and a crop of worms. The worms are fed by Siberian Sturgeon - with ultimately a harvest of caviar for Yorkshire's high class restaurants. Once again the lateral thinking of the Green Business Network has resulted in a wide range of social and environmental gains - the partnership for this project involves over 50 local businesses, a Primary Care Trust, two local authorities, a national charity, three community enterprises, a packaging compliance scheme and a utilities Company - with viable, long-term jobs created for local ex-drugs users in the recycling and fish farming scheme.
www.greenbusinessnetwork.org.uk
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
RMC Aggregate, Rugby - 'Glasphalt' and Reduction in Sulphur Dioxide
RMC's entry for the awards featured a product and a new process, specifically the development of Glasphalt and the state of the art cement Kiln at Rugby.
Glasphalt is a road construction and maintenance material containing 30% waste glass. It is a realistic and workable solution to the increasing problem of the positive utilisation of waste glass - much of which, although collected in bottle banks is simply landfilled. Glasphalt has therefore the dual benefit of reducing the need for landfill and conserving natural aggregates.
Launched in July 2000 by RMC Aggregates over 70,000 tonnes of Glasphalt have been produced and have stood up to the rigorous 5 stage testing of the Highways Agency. The initiative will help local authorities meet government targets that recycled and secondary aggregates should make up 25% of total aggregate consumption by 2006.
The second example, illustrating RMC's environmental policy in action, is Kiln 7 at Rugby Works. RMC has 22% of the UK's sales of cement and Rugby is responsible for 1.84m tonnes pa. In the late 1990s it faced the choice of upgrading six existing kilns or create a new, state of the art kiln to replace the others. It commissioned the new kiln in February 2000, and instead of going for a conventional scrubber to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions, it integrated pollution control into the fundamental design - and in doing so revolutionised the cement making process. In effect, the addition of two primary raw material streams at different points in the process enables chalk to absorb sulphur from the rest of the feed, thus almost eliminating SO2 emissions.
Although there is no statutory limit for the release of Sulphur Dioxide in the UK, the regulator required a reduction of 2.5 times the emissions of the plants being replaced. In the event this has been beaten by a factor of 10 and the new technique is being copied throughout the world.
www.rmc.co.uk
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Welsh Water - Millennium Wetland and Discovery Centre, Llanelli
The project is the creation of a new 80Ha wetland of international conservation significance through the recycling of treated waste water. The project results from an innovative partnership between Welsh Water, local government and the Wildfowl & Westlands Trust, with WDA and Millennium Commission funding.
The project forms an important part of the Millennium Coastal Park and therefore contributes to the socio-economic wellbeing of the area. The Coastland Park has seen visitor numbers increase by 60%.
The Discovery Centre and the associated educational programme promote effectively the sustainable use of resources - particularly water. The Centre is itself exemplary with a 180 degrees glass viewing area.
The project has cost £3m transforming low grade agricultural land into what is claimed to be the largest created wetland of its type in Europe. Welsh Water itself has invested £0.5m - as well as seeing a partnership role for itself in capitalising on its new Llanelli sewage treatment works in such an imaginative way.
Our Assessor particularly liked the notice on the reserve "Water provided by you".
www.welshwateralliance.co.uk
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Corus Construction and Industrial, Rotherham - Hydrobarrier: a new solution for contaminated land
Corus has over the years demonstrated impressive commitment to the environment with dozens of innovated practices, products and techniques. The award this year is for Hydrobarrier - Corus' specialist business for sealed sheet piling solutions.
Corus inherited several extremely polluted sites - such as Ravenscraig. It has always taken seriously its responsibilities for remediation and at Ravenscraig and elsewhere it developed a process for permanently containing contaminants or groundwater.
The produce comprises high quality steel sheet piling with a proprietary sealant, tailored to the specific permeability requirements of the project, applied to the interlocks. All work is quality assured to ISO9001, with the interlocks between each pile thoroughly prepared and cleaned in a dry environment prior to the application of the sealant. the piles are then delivered to site ready for installation with the sealant in place.
Clearly contaminated land remediation and management is an issue of growing importance, particularly with the growing need for the reuse of brownfield sites. The approach to cleaning contamination needs flexible solutions and Hydrobarrier meets this need.
Hydrobarrier is a good example of how the environment can be improved through market and product development. It contributes to sustainable development in the product itself and its application. It has enabled major redevelopment to take place in a variety of locations throughout the UK.
www.hydrobarrier.com
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Bennetts Associates, Architects - 1 Rawsthorne Place, London
Bennetts Associates is one of the UK's leading architectural practices with a strong reputation for pioneering and promoting sustainability. They have been involved in previous BCE winning projects but this project is a superb example of accountability, of putting your money where your mouth is!
After designing low energy and sustainable projects for clients, the company decided to take over and refurbish a derelict site in a residential area of Clerkenwell - a Conservation Area - to design and build their own offices. Central to the project was an 18th Century barn, a relic of the cattle drovers' route to Smithfields Market. Although this was in a state of near collapse, it provided the hub for the project.
The new offices maximise the use of daylight and natural ventilation and use low energy products (the carpeting is of 80% recycled material). The building is open plan and gives the impression of not being boxed in despite being surrounded by Georgian and Victorian terraces. There is sensitive use of brick and glass, as well as planting and the roof is covered with low maintenance sedum. The local community was thoroughly involved in the project throughout.
For a company at the vanguard of energy efficient design this is a project under the spotlight - an exemplar for the company's own work. The £1m project (excluding fees) was opened in 2002. The findings of the initial research and benchmarking have already been widely disseminated and the company is driving forward its sustainable use of the premises by a programme of development in house policies and practices. Rab Bennett in giving the keynote address to the European intelligent Buildings Group in 1998 called for the responsible and open monitoring of the performance of buildings noting several lauded as paradigms of green architecture and development are not functioning as well as predicted. 1 Rawsthorne Place is not one of these!
www.bennettsassociates.com
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Southern Water - the de Hoxar Spiral Separator
Scottish Power have entered some excellent projects to the BCE awards over the years, with their various companies showing exemplary environmental commitment. This year it is their subsidiary Southern Water that is an award winner.
The project is the de Hoxar Spiral Separator, named after the Southern Water Principal Engineer who invented it - and this novel gravity separation device enables treatment works to be developed or redeveloped on much smaller sites than would previously have been the case - it requires just 3% of the site area of a conventional tank.
Trials started in 1993 in Bognor. The specific example for the BCE award is at Shoreham where Southern Water has been able to redevelop a relatively small existing site to provide the enhanced level of treatment required by the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. Without the use of Spiral Separators this would not have been possible and a Greenfield site would have had to be used, necessitating several kilometres of new pipeline to be laid through densely developed urban areas.
In a very constrained site adjacent to the new power station the new Spiral Separators - with their unique platelets - were constructed. As with the other five sites where the de Hoxar Spiral has been used (including one at Lowestoft outside Southern Water's area), the technique leads to thickened sludge which can be fed directly into the sludge digesters so no further thickening is needed. The compact nature of the separation process can result in considerable cost savings - while a further benefit of the de Hoxar spiral separator is its compact nature allows it to be covered and full odour control provided.
www.southernwater.co.uk
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Tarmac Central Ltd - Langford Lowfields Quarry Reedbed Creation
This is a 35 year project on a massive scale demonstrating that meeting the need for aggregates is compatible with the concept of sustainable development and delivering social economic and environmental benefits.
Tarmac - the UK's largest producer of construction aggregates - has a good environmental track record, reporting on its environmental performance since 1995 and setting consistently high targets for itself. All its quarry operations are certified to ISO14001. Langford Lowfield presented particular problems because restoration to event the pre-quarrying low grade agricultural land would have needed perpetual pumping. So Tarmac worked with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to produce a sustainable restoration plan based on the historic wetlands characteristic of the Trent Valley.
Quarrying began in 1988 and some 300,000 tonnes of sand and gravel are produced annually for local construction use. Plans to develop and restore the area have been further developed in response to the UK's Biodiversity Action Plan following the Rio Conference and over time the parcels of the site will be restored and handed to the RSPB for management. The first 20Ha tranche has now been restored and passed to the RSPB in 1999 - although the plan for the whole site lasts until after 2020. By then, the 170Ha site will have become a major RSPB reserve with a mixture of 40Ha new reedbeds, wet grassland, wildflower meadow, open water and rough grass, scrub and woodland habitats.
www.tarmac.co.uk
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
AVIS Europe plc - Future Forests: Fighting Global Warming
Avis is the leading car rental company in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, serving more than 7 million customers a year through a network of over 2500 locations in 110 countries.
It recognised firstly that a company of this size made a considerable impact on the environment and secondly that a well-publicised environmentally friendly image could bring considerable value to its brand. A new environmental policy was developed and driven by the company's Managing Director.
In 1998 it started a relationship with Future Forests, estimating the carbon dioxide emissions resulting from its various activities and then how many trees would be needed to be planted to offset this impact.
In May 1999 the company announced its UK operations would become carbon neutral by planting some 45000 trees to offset the carbon emissions from people and machinery. It sponsored Future Forests to plant this number of trees in various locations, mainly in Scotland. The cost is some £200,000.
In 2002 it announced all its European operations would similarly become carbon neutral - and that the company was publicly committing itself to reduce carbon emissions.
Avis can therefore promote itself as the leading company in the travel sector in tackling greenhouse gas emissions, pointing to its engagement of staff and customers - and to having committed itself to the environment to the tune of 45,000 trees - so far.
www.avis-europe.com
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Groundwork Blackburn - BEA Partnership Programme
In 1996 Groundwork Blackburn won a BCE award for their Business Environment Association (BEA). This project is a particularly exciting spin-off from the Trust's pioneering work in the UK - the establishment of BES initiatives in Eastern Europe.
Supported by European funding the initiative dates back to 1997 and is continuing now with Polish government money and income from businesses. The Polish government wishes to get environmental standards in line with others in the EU by 2004.
As in the UK, the BEA approach is to engage companies, particularly the small and medium sized enterprises (SME's), to provide environmental training and support, to reward good practice with awards and to take some companies to a higher level - ISO14001 or development of specific new products or processes.
The programme in Poland now covers seven cities and 70 towns, with 12 business and associations and some 250 companies involved. The initiative is now extending to Romania. We will be forwarding this project to the European Environmental Awards and are confident we have a winner in the International Partnership for Sustainable Development.
www.groundwork.co.uk
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Major Commendation 2002
Presented at The Lincoln Centre, London on 6th May 2003 by Rt Hon Michael Meacher, Minister of State for the Environment.
Hanson with RSPB and Cambridgeshire CC - Needingworth Wetland Project
This project will create a new 700Ha wetland nature reserve. It is massive in scale and is of great importance in three respects; firstly, meeting a countywide demand for sand and gravel for the next 30 years; secondly offering the prospect of the largest new freshwater reedbed in the UK providing 40% of the government's target for this type of habitat; and thirdly in making a contribution of national significance to the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, particularly in relation to the breeding pattern population.
The project (begun in 1992 with planning approval secured in 1995 and work begun in 1999) is an outstanding example of cooperation between industry, public agencies and wildlife conservation interests in which all three parties gain significant benefits and the ultimate legacy is a major wildlife reserve which will be accessible to the public.
The reedbed wetland covering 460Ha will be constructed in phases over the next 30 years. Importantly, a majority of the site will be restorable to agriculture with fertile soil profiles being maintained, although its impact in restoring a traditional Fen landscape and in nature conservation is most striking.
The quarry will supply 28m tonnes of sand and gravel. The project has been designed in partnership with the RSPB who will ultimately manage the site and is overseen by a Technical Panel comprising of representatives from the company, RSPB, the Environment Agency, English Nature, Defra and the planning authority, with Cambridgeshire County Council performaing the dual role of facilitator and regulator in an exemplary way. The BCE Panel were impressed with the scale and vision of the project and the partnership including Hanson's commitment to adjusting its plans to accommodate wetland restoration, which resulted in planning consent being given in one go to a 30 year long project. The scale of the project in geographical terms and in what will be achieved in one generation has required vision and clear forward planning and the key partners have exemplified this.
www.hanson.co.uk
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