SWIG Awards November 2011

What did you miss at the SWIG Awards 2011?

Some of the highlights � beyond a delicious breakfast and the stunning venue with its amazing views over London- are listed below. It is an attempt to explain the electric atmosphere created by representatives from over 40 different organisations gathered to celebrate and promote some of the most well thought through, successful and imaginative projects using water sustainably.

Great creativity was evident amongst the nominations, shortlisted and Award winning entries. They ranged from commercial to public and larger to smaller projects:

  • From a Bus Depot in Cardiff to a commercial Strawberry Producer in the Midlands
  • Peppa Pig World won an award by a short snout along with Hackney City Farm and ech2o who inspired near- miraculous behaviour change with 2500 children and 120 teachers in 10 schools.
  • Optimised water on Green Roofs from Optigreen, and Drainwave based on a Victorian brainwave to keep sewers sludge- free zones.
  • Rainwater harvesting featured twice. Once for Hill House, an Edwardian, 6 bedroom home retrofitted with Rainwater Harvesting and Grey Water recycling. The second was an exciting low energy rainwater harvesting system from Aquality
  • Award winning Water Standards from the sustainable building association, AECB, provide powerful, future changing guidance to deliver excellent water and energy performance.

 

The Inaugural SWIG Awards

SWIG - The Voice of Sustainable Water Neal Landsberg, Chair of SWIG and Marketing Director, Watermatic Ltd opened the event explaining that SWIG is The Voice of Sustainable Water. The theme of the past year has been �The Next Decade � doing more, better� and we have covered many topics in other SWIG events and meetings including green infrastructure and sustainable water management with a variety of excellent speakers.

Sustainable water management has been ignored and is still often ignored until the last minute when it becomes unnecessarily expensive.� An example of this is when groundwork and excavation phases have passed without provision for rainwater storage when such work is low cost, and later plans are prohibitively costly. Proper planning and integrating sustainable water management systems at the beginning of a project is cheaper and more cost effective.

Mr. Landsberg thanked the London Mayor, Mr. Boris Johnson, and the Greater London Authority for its support and introduced the first speaker for a welcoming address, Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor�s Director of Environment, at the Greater London Authority who attended on behalf of Boris� Johnson.

Putting the Village Back into London

By capturing and using the romantic view of village life and understanding the values of something, then together Londoners could make improvements to the capital. �The Mayor of London�s environmental strategy�, said Mr. Ranger, �has three facets: Climate Change Adaptation, Energy and Water. We need to treat water as the valuable resource it is.�

In order to make our cities pleasant to live in, we need to protect air quality, use our energy and water wisely and create green infrastructure.�This approach will attract investment, create jobs and produce economic benefits. Mr Ranger also stressed the need to make sure that the super sewer planned for the Thames really delivers the benefits promised.

Economic benefits of green infrastructure

Dusty Gedge, the urban ecologist and green roof designer, spoke of the importance of green infrastructure in cities:�green roofs cool a building and avoid the need for air conditioning; they reduce the urban heat island effect, clean the air, create leisure and food growing spaces, increase insulation and extend the life of the roof.�� Furthermore, green roofs help to control water run-off and prevent flooding.�

32% of London could have green roofs retrofitted tomorrow and brought attention to the fact that the environmental benefits of green roofs and walls clearly translate into economic benefits.

In July 2009 seven intense storms flooded London with 26% of the rainfall in the Victoria area.�It forced the closure of 17 underground stations and caused so much financial loss that the Business Improvement District commissioned a report on green roofs for the area.

Mr Gedge also explained that adequate green infrastructure can reduce the size and cost of super sewers.

The Judges

  Name Company Bio
Zac Ribak Watermatic Ltd
Armando Raish Treebox Ltd
Miranda Pennington Metropolis Green
Cath Hassell ech2o
John Griggs CIPHE
Lutz Johnen Aquality Trading & Consulting Ltd
All Judges Download all Judges in one PDF

Award Winners

  Residential Building Retrofit

Hill House
www.watermaticltd.co.uk

    New Build No eligible entries  
  Non-Residential Building Retrofit Cardiff Bus Depot
    New Build Paultons Theme Park
www.paultonspark.co.uk
  Behaviour Change   Be Water Aware
www.ech2o.co.uk
www.hackneycityfarm.co.uk
  Water Companies   No eligible entries  
  Open Spaces and Agriculture   The Epping Golf Course
www.eppinggolfcourse.org.uk

      T W Busby & Son
www.twbusbyandson.co.uk
  Products   Water Standards
www.aecb.net
      Drainwave
www.konserve.co.uk
      Eco Compac
www.aqua-lity.co.uk

 

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