BAC Wins Third Sustainability Award
Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) is celebrating its third award for sustainability projects in the last 12 months after recently being awarded the 2014 Healthy Waterways ‘Sustainable Water Management Award’.
This accolade follows hot on the heels of the Corporation winning the ‘Business Eco-Efficiency Category’ in the 2014 Premier’s Sustainability Awards, and the ‘Sustainability in Business Category’ at the 2013 Lord Mayor’s Business Awards.
Brisbane Airport is also the only airport in Australia to have received Bronze benchmarked status in the EarthCheck program and has registered to achieve a Green Star rating through the Green Building Council of Australia – Communities PILOT rating tool.
Julieanne Alroe, BAC CEO and Managing Director, said winning the treble was a huge honour and recognition of the hard work and dedication of BAC employees, in particular staff from the Environment, Assets and Strategic Planning and Development groups.
“BAC has the most devoted team of environmental specialists in place making sure that whatever we do, we do it with the environment in mind.
“We want to tread lightly on the land and put in place programs that help us manage and minimise the long-term impacts of climate change and adverse environmental impacts from aviation and property development activities.
“These awards are well deserved and I congratulate our team for not only meeting, but exceeding, benchmarks,” Ms Alroe said.
With a land area of 2700 hectares, including a 285 hectare biodiversity zone which is home to the Lewin’s Rail, an elusive and near threatened bird species, Brisbane Airport is a large and complex environment to manage.
As an essential element of the core business strategy, BAC has developed and implemented an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan. This plan documents the company’s commitment to sustainability and further sets a blueprint for continued improvement at Brisbane Airport into the future.
The benefits of embedding eco-efficiency values into the business are significant cost savings and the guarantee of supply as the airport grows are clear Ms Alroe said.
“By gaining a better understanding of how energy and water is consumed at the airport and implementing initiatives that help BAC be more resource efficient, we are able to effectively grow our business without dramatically increasing our natural resource consumption. This is particularly the case for energy and potable water consumption initiatives,” she said.
Some of BAC’s eco-initiatives include solar power, LED street and terminal lighting, automatic stormwater samplers, electric cars, a sterile-air UV treatment emitter, a recycled water network, and the reuse of green waste.
For further information about BAC’s environmental initiatives see: www.bne.com.au/corporate/about-us/environment-sustainability.