2009-09-16 - ABB South Africa, part of the global power and automation group, has sponsored the Energy Award category in the prestigious "Greening the future awards" run by the authoritative Mail & Guardian weekly newspaper.
The winners of this category were the National Business Institute (NBI) and runner up was Trees for Africa. The winner's award and certificates for both winners were presented by Nthabiseng Dube, Director: Marketing and Communication, ABB South Africa.
This is the first time that ABB South Africa has sponsored the Energy Awards category. The reason is to encourage individuals, not-for-profit organisations and companies to promote and implement environmentally friendly practices including in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy and responsible conservation.
The newspaper's annual awards, held for the sixth year running, honour the achievements of companies and organisations that work hard, often going unrecognised, to ensure a better environmental future for our children and the planet. The awards honour the values that ABB itself strives to achieve in the areas of sustainability including environmental care and social responsibility. For ABB sustainability means seeking a balance between economic development, environmental stewardship and social progress. Sustainability is built into different aspects of ABB's business, including the manufacturing of energy-saving products, systems and solutions and sharing technology throughout our group, particularly with developing countries.
The ABB award for media encouraging energy and environmental coverage, run for the first time by the Mail & Guardian, was aimed at recognizing journalistic excellence in the area of energy and environmental journalism. The overall winner in this category was SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) television programme 50/50 which has played a major role in environmental awareness and sustainable practices in South Africa. The Energy journalist award attracted a pleasing number of entrants in its first year of existence. Entries came from a number of South Africa's leading news organisations and publications.
ABB South Africa's sponsorship of the awards comes in the year that ABB will be hosting its largest customer event on the African continent, Automation and Power World 2009 on 11 and 12 November. This event is expected to attract a large number of customers. The event will be hosted at ABB South Africa's new head office, manufacturing and logistics centre at Longmeadow, Johannesburg, which is a green building, showcasing the most advanced green building technologies as well as use of ABB's energy efficiency products. Customers will have an opportunity to experience ABB's energy efficient products, systems and service as well as its research and development and obtain insight into its research and development and future technologies at the event.
Chesney Bradshaw, corporate communications and sustainability manager for ABB South Africa was one of "The panel for the planet" judges in this year's greening the future awards.