Rewarding climate change leadership

"These awards demonstrate that they are achieving their desired result, with improved quality of entries from schools, greater diversity from individuals and communities and growing carbon offset innovation from SMEs," said Jeunesse Park, founder of Food & Trees for Africa and the CCLA. "The Local Municipalities category, however, had a unanimously clear winner and the private sector is growing from strength to strength in its efforts to deal with climate risks and opportunities."

Andile Ncontsa of Litha Communications announced the evolution of the awards to the continent-wide Climate Hero Awards Africa, which will kick off on 1 October 2012, World Habitat Day.

"The Climate Hero Awards Africa has its origins in the resounding success of the Climate Change Leadership Awards," said Ncontsa. "As a continental response to climate mitigation, the awards were established with the realisation that tackling the climate change challenge cannot be confined to artificial borders but require a concerted effort from all stakeholders in society across the continent."

Winners

This year, the scope of categories was expanded to ten and judging methodologies evolved to sustain the spirit of the awards and cater to growing interest across the board.

1. Schools or Youth Groups (sponsored by Pick n Pay) - first place was Mailakgang Primary School, with its peer educator concept for recycling, tree planting, food gardening, and water conservation linked to climate change awareness, that reaches beyond its own school of children to neighbouring schools. Strelitzia Secondary was placed second and Inkwenkwezi High School came in third.
   
2. Communities and individuals (sponsored by the South African Post Office) - first place went to the Reporting Development Network Africa, for demystifying climate change, with a specific focus on community education and training the media. It interrogates the way that issues of climate change, food security and overall global sustainability are being framed by journalists when they communicate to the public. Second place was awarded to JNF Walter Sisulu Environmental Centre and Daniel Robinson of Project 90 by 2030 was third.
   
3. Waste Minimisation (sponsored by ABI) - winner was Foodbank South Africa as a project dealing with both aspects of climate change, mitigation (avoidance of emissions from landfills) and adaptation (dealing with food security), by reclaiming food which would potentially be wasted and redistributing this to those that need it. Second place was Soul Foundation and third was Bergvliet High.
   
4. Agriculture and Food category - winner was the Coca-Cola Company, which is addressing climate change through two main areas - cutting carbon emissions and increasing energy efficiency. A special mention went Fairview for the country's first carbon-neutral cheesery.
   
5. Energy, Minerals and Industrials category - won by Gold Fields Limited, which has been aligning its business with emerging, global low carbon emissions economies since 2005 and has a clearly defined carbon management strategy and multiple energy efficiency projects
   
6. Financials category - winner was Santam for its part sponsorship of a research project in partnership with the CSIR, University of Cape Town and WWF, the outcome of which illustrates how human-induced impacts on the ecological buffering capacity of the system have an equal or greater impact on risk, as compared to future climate change predictions.
   
7. Other Corporate Services category - winner was RISO Africa for its off-the-grid printing solution called Risolar, which makes it possible for rural educational institutions without electricity to print 90 pages per minute using solar power.
   
8. Retail category - won by Pick n Pay for its new world-class, eco-friendly stores and its ongoing commitment to climate change education programme
   
9. SME category - winner was Earth Patrol for its depth and breadth of commitment to environmentally sustainable solutions for its customers and partners
   
10. Local Municipalities category (new) - Municipality of Cape Town for its long term sustainability strategy, a string of deployed initiatives and setting the national example. A special mention went to eThekwini Municipality, which implemented a range of activities throughout the past year.
    

The Schools/Youth Group category winners share R35 000 in gift vouchers from Pick n Pay amongst the three winners and winners in the Community and Individual category share R100 000 from South African Post Office. Waste Minimisation heroes get financial assistance from Amalgamated Beverage Industries, with educational courses sponsored by Global Carbon Exchange.