The Sunshine Coast Council has been recognised for the second year in a row at Australia’s longest-running sustainability awards.
Sunshine Coast won the government category of the 2021 Banksia Sustainability Awards for its proactive plan to deliver a healthy environment and liveable Sunshine Coast.
The Environment and Liveability Strategy guides the growth of the Sunshine Coast region to 2041, with judges saying it strikes a balance between the natural and the built environment while supporting a strong economy and resilient communities.
It also aligns with many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Sunshine Coast won last year’s government award for its Mary Cairncross BioBlitz, a research event aimed at studying and celebrating biodiversity in a local park.
The ACT Government’s water and sewerage service provider, Icon Water, won the Gold Banksia Award for a program that recovers by-products such as sludges, soils, and biosolids from water and sewerage management
In other award news, Shoalhaven City Council has collected two awards in the 2021 Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) Excellence Awards.
The council’s Shoalhaven Water utility won the Environmental Enhancement Project or Initiative Including Recovery, Recycling and Reusing Award for its Reclaimed Water Management Scheme (REMS).
Shoalhaven Water developed the REMS scheme to reduce potable water consumption, minimise the impacts of a rapidly expanding population and drought, and protect the local environment.
The scheme enables the collection and storage of treated effluent or reclaimed water for use on agricultural land and local sports grounds via a dedicated transfer and distribution system.
Council has also won the prestigious Minister for Local Government’s Award for Innovation in Local Government Engineering for its Shoalhaven Indoor Sports Centre.