ISCA wins the Banksia Gold Award
Australia’s longest-running sustainability awards program, the Banksia Awards recognise individuals, communities, businesses and governments for innovation and excellence in environmental and social stewardship.
Last year, the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) was named ‘best of the best’, taking home the Banksia Gold Award for a powerful commitment to the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) and for demonstrating the potential to deliver a big future impact. The Banksia Foundation has aligned its award criteria to the United Nations’ SDGs.
Launched in 2012, ISCA’s IS Rating Scheme is explicitly aligned to 15 of the 17 SDGs. Together, the SDGs aim to end poverty, improve health and education, reduce inequality and accelerate economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
ISCA also took out the Banksia Not-For-Profit Award. Other winners included Fujitsu Australia’s Digital Owl solution, which uses artificial intelligence and drone technology to pinpoint endangered species, and Substation33, a social enterprise that recycles electronic waste and helps people build new skills at the same time.
Ms Simpson says winning the Banksia Gold Awards “spurred our team on to scale our reach, elevate our advocacy and ensure sustainability is core part of infrastructure evaluation”.
Since then, independent analysis prepared by RPS Group, IS Rating Scheme Return on Investment, has found infrastructure projects rated under the IS Rating Scheme deliver up to $2.40 in benefit for every dollar spent. The study also found that, if the uptake of the IS Rating Scheme doubled, the net benefit would soar to a net present value of $90 million.
Ms van Egmond says the Banksia Foundation chose to extend the deadline for nominations for 2020 “because we believe that now it is more important than ever to celebrate those who are striving to make change”.
“Many people are using this time to look internally and ask the question – when life returns back to its ‘norm’, what am I going to have done, or what am I going to do, to have a positive impact on the world around me?”
The 2020 Banksia Sustainability Awards ceremony will take place in early 2021. Find out more about how to enter the 2020 Banksia Awards before 30 November 2020.
Taken from Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia media release December 2019.
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