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Stockland and Dyesol: sustainable companies of the year |
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Written by Oliver Wagg
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Wednesday, 09 December 2009 |
 Stockland wins this year's prestigious Sustainable Company of the Year Award, announced today at a luncheon in Melbourne, while Dyesol, a supplier of equipment materials and components for dye solar cell technology, wins the Sustainable Small Company of the Year Award.
Over the past year the company has formalised its approach to stakeholder engagement with the development of a stakeholder engagement framework and clear stakeholder engagement plans for all of its projects, the company said in its submission to the award judges.
Dyesol was nominated for developing innovative technology, which when commercialised will give homeowners and businesses access to cheaper solar energy.
The Australian Sustainability Awards and the 2009 Sustainable Company of the Year Award was sponsored by GPT Group.
Blackmores, last year’s winner of the category, sponsored the 2009 Sustainable Small Company of the Year.
Other Corporate Awards were:
Environment (sponsored by Energetics): Sims Metal for establishing best-of-sector low carbon intensity and for structuring its own strategies around a framework of energy efficiency, green energy and carbon offsets.
Social-Community (sponsored by Christian Super): National Australia Bank for its clearly defined target to increase corporate community investment to 1 per cent of cash earnings before tax and its leadership role in microfinance.
Labour Relations/Human Capital Management (sponsored by Kingsgate Consolidated): Commonwealth Bank - Human capital management is a key component of CBA’s strategy to improve customer service and brand engagement.
Corporate Governance (sponsored by Regnan): David Jones for its outstanding corporate governance structures and demonstration of unequivocal independence in all key areas including its board of directors, audit committees, remuneration committees, and nomination committees.
A new award this year, The Special Award for Infrastructure (sponsored by Evans & Peck) went to AJ Lucas, for expanding its activities in environmentally beneficial technologies in recent years, particularly energy and water infrastructure.
Financial Services Industry Awards
HESTA is awarded Sustainable Super Fund of the Year, sponsored by GPT Group.
There were a surprising number of entries for The Special Award for Sustainability Research, which went to Elaine Prior, Citi Investment Research for her unrelenting work on the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and the impact of numerous changes to the proposed policy on the earnings of high carbon-emitting companies such as coal and metal mining.
The Ethical Investor Fund of the Year, as judged by Lonsec, is ING Sustainable Australia Wholesale Share Trust. Writing in the upcoming edition of Ethical Investor Steve Sweeney, senior investment analyst at Lonsec, says this trust has strongly outperformed its benchmark over the assessed period and the past three years.
Due recognition is also deserved for Perpetual’s Wholesale Ethical SRI Fund, for delivering an excellent result for investors over the year in outperforming the benchmark by a very healthy margin after fees |
