AWARDS -  9 December 2009 – Stockland was named Sustainable Company of the Year at the Australian Sustainability Awards announced in Melbourne today.

And Dyesol, a supplier of equipment materials and components for dye solar cell technology, has won the Sustainable Small Company of the Year Award, for its innovative technology which is expected to give  homeowners and businesses access to cheaper solar energy, when it becomes commercialised.

The awards, hosted by Ethical Investor magazine, recognise achievement by Australian Securities Exchange-listed companies in a range of areas of corporate sustainability.

Stockland’s win, the highest honour in the awards, was for stakeholder engagement program and for its commitment to sustainability, balancing environmental, social and economic outcomes.

Stockland managing director Matthew Quinn said: “We have achieved a great deal this year by creating a more robustsustainability strategy for our Residential and Retirement Living businesses, as well as continuing to focus on improving the sustainability performance of our assets.”

In the past year the company has developed a Stakeholder Engagement Framework and clear stakeholder engagement plan templates for all of its projects, but this would go further, Mr Quinn said.

“We are currently refining our community development plans and aim to introduce world-class initiatives on social sustainability.”

Matthew Quinn, at the opening of Stockhome earlier this year

The company had contributed $3.4 million in community investment in the last financial year to June 2009 and more than 44 per cent of employees had volunteered time to mentor students and support local communities.

Other recent achievements include: “Gold” membership of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index – one of only four property companies to achieve that status; was listed in the Australian Climate Leadership Index in 2009 which rates companies with advanced strategies on climate change;and been awarded 6 Stars (“World Leadership”) for its projects Stockhome and 2 Victoria Avenue Perth.

Other winners at the awards included:

• Environment: 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: 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: Commonwealth Bank – Human capital management is a key component of CBA’s strategy to improve customer service and brand engagement.
• Corporate Governance: 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: AJ Lucas, for expanding its activities in environmentally beneficial technologies in recent years, particularly energy and water infrastructure.

In the financial services category the winners were:

• HESTA, which won Sustainable Super Fund of the Year.
• Elaine Prior, Citi Investment Research, who won the The Special Award for Sustainability 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.
• ING Sustainable Australia Wholesale Share Trust, which won the The Ethical Investor Fund of the Year.

“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,”  reported Ethical Investor magazine.

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