Sustainable Cities Awards 2007

The prestigious Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Cities Environmental Education Award 2007 sponsored by the Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW (DECC) has been won by Christian Community Aid for its project 'Chinese Leisure Learning Goes Green'.

The Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Cities Awards were announced on 26 July 2007.

The highly competitive, DECC-sponsored Environment Education Award recognises educational projects that increase school and/or community awareness of urban environmental issues, such as waste management, conservation and water protection. An important feature of the award is that the projects of all can be implemented or adapted elsewhere.

Runner-up in the Environmental Education Award 2007 were Kogarah Municipal Council and Rockdale City Council for their project, 'Adopt a School - Students Today, Green Leaders Tomorrow'.

Highly commended were North Sydney Council for 'Small Business toward Sustainability' and Warringah Council for 'Educating a Sustainable Community'.

The prestigious Sustainable Cities Overall Council Category was won by Randwick City Council for their work on a wide range of issues that confront their Local Government Area.

Chinese Leisure Goes Green

The Environment Education Award-winning Christian Community Aid project, 'Chinese Leisure Learning Goes Green' incorporates environmentally sustainable lifestyle courses into existing community education courses that are provided to Chinese-speaking adults. The program's 25 new courses are aimed at educating and engaging the Chinese-speaking community to adopt environmentally sustainable lifestyle practises.

The courses have attracted 564 participants and 11 volunteers. Subjects include: green cleaning, eco-gardening, water saving strategies, waste reduction, energy conservation, bush regeneration, fresh food cooking courses and creative craft with recycled materials. The courses incorporate talks by experts, discussion groups, field trips, workshops and competitions.

Sustainable Cities program

The Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW congratulates all of the winners and finalists in the Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Cities program - a program that embraces the philosophy that the whole community must work together to reduce adverse impacts of human activity on the environment and to make urban areas vibrant and healthy places to live.

The Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Cities programme embraces 43 local government areas, from Newcastle to Wollongong, Sydney, the Central Coast, Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains and Illawarra. Partnerships between community groups, local government and business are strongly encouraged, as sustainable cities must balance the need for development with the need to protect the environment.

>> More info - www.kabnsw.org.au