Keeping it Civil: Out of this world projects recognised by earth awards
Posted date: 31 Aug 2010
Recently a joint venture between McConnell Dowell and Built Environs was announced as the
winners of the South Australian CCF Earth Award, with the work completed on the Techport Australia Common User Facility taking out one of five top honours for the state.
The $260million project was completed in December of last year and is located on the Port River at Osbourne, South Australia. According to a press release issued by McConnell Dowell, the new facility “supports shipbuilding and maintenance company ASC in delivering the Royal Australian Navy’s next generation of Air Warfare Destroyers.”
It is a prime example of the standard of project entered into the 17th Annual CCF Earth Awards. State finalists continue to be judged across July and August, with the gala event convening in Canberra on October 23rd where the National Earth Award winner will be announced for 2010.
It’s a prestigious event, a highly coveted prize and the only Awards of its kind, where some of the country’s most innovative and brilliant engineering projects have gained well won recognition and reward as a result of their entry.
For all that, the Earth Awards actually serve a far broader and even more important purpose. For nearly two decades the Awards have helped to shift the perception of civil contracting being the ‘bash and burn’ mob that show up to clear land for property construction and infrastructure development.
The reality is that the industry has a long history of self-regulating and developing sustainable practices that protected the environment long before the legislators in Canberra caught up, as CCF’s chief, Mr. Chris White explains.
“At the time we launched the Awards as a new initiative, there was very little regulation in place around environmental protection and preservation of natural habitat. Even back then we already had members developing innovative practices to address the key issues such as advancing the way soil erosion was prevented, how to remediate and revegetate natural bushlands and stop pollutant run off into waterways,” says White.
“For nearly two decades now, the Earth Awards have allowed us to train a spotlight on emerging best practice. As a result, the overall standards of the industry have raised and in truth, the regulators have then worked to formalise these standards and set them into law, so they must be followed by everyone.”
Over the years, the Awards have evolved to recognise more and more of what Civil Contractors are doing across the country. New categories have emerged and the entry criteria have been modified from time to time to allow for changing practices and standards.
The 2010 Awards had three main entry options, Conservation Techniques, Environmental Management and Project Management, with each fleshing out further to encompass projects of varying scale, with anything from up to a million to more than $75 million eligible to enter.
Attached to a big evening of celebrating some remarkable feats of engineering at the Awards Gala Dinner, CCF is also staging its annual industry conference. This is an excellent opportunity for industry players to talk about contemporary issues, network with peers and gain some valuable insight into what business leaders and Government alike have to say about developments in the industry.
If you’re interested in attending the National Conference and/or securing a table for the Awards night, you should visit www.civilcontractors.com and follow the relevant links.
In the next edition of the ASSETS newsletter, we plan to speak with some of the State winners about their entries and what the Earth Awards means to them. If you’ve got a comment or question about the CCF Earth Awards, contact us on newsletter@allstakesupply.com.au