The Sustainable Energy Association of Australia (SEA) congratulates City of Cockburn, recognised by Keep Australia Beautiful as Western Australia's most Sustainable City for 2012.

Environment Minister Bill Marmion revealed the City of Cockburn as the winner in an awards ceremony held in Perth yesterday, 30 July 2012.

Cockburn also received the Highly Commended award for Community Action and Partnership and Heritage and Culture and was the Category Winner for Environmental Innovation and protection and Young Legends.

‘The City of Cockburn connects its residents and community with the local environment and is building capacity to deliver outcomes that are sustainable - sustainable because of support from diverse elements within the community and engagement across the breadth of the City, says Professor Ray Wills, State Judge for the awards and Chief Advisor of SEA.

‘With leadership from the Mayor and Council, the City is strategically tackling sustainability and addressing the challenges of climate change and environmental protection, and is a deserving winner of WA's most Sustainable City for 2012,' says Prof Wills.

The Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Cities awards program recognises metropolitan local governments that are active in their communities and making valuable contributions towards environmental sustainability.

‘As State Judge, I've been excited to see the range of projects presented for judging for the sustainable cities awards. Local governments are demonstrating their leadership on water and energy efficiency, green buildings, renewable energy, waste minimisation and recycling and many other sustainability initiatives,' says Prof Wills.

‘Even more exciting is the level of both community support and community engagement across many of the projects. Community participation was especially apparent in all of our three State finalists - the Cites of Cockburn, Mandurah and Rockingham have all impressed with the obvious support for sustainable outcomes from their constituents,' says Prof Wills.

SEA congratulates all Category Winners and finalists, selected by an independent panel of judges - all have a long history of commitment to sustainable outcomes for their communities, and all are, along with many other Local Government Authorities, members supporting the Sustainable Energy Association.

Notably, the latest data from the Australian Clean Energy Regulator shows that Western Australia now has over 104 000 rooftops with solar installed, adding a total of 218 MW of solar capacity to the electricity grid in south-west Western Australia. Reflecting the success of their local governments promoting sustainability, residents of both Cockburn and Mandurah have installed enough solar panels on their homes to make them collectively among the largest installations of solar in Australia.

Solar data sourced from Australian Clean Energy Regulator http://ret.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/REC-Registry/Data-reports.


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Details of Category winners

Community Action & Partnership
• Highly Commended - City of Cockburn
• Category Winner - City of Mandurah
Litter Prevention
• Category Winner - City of Mandurah
Resource Recovery & Waste Management
• Highly Commended - WMRC
• Category Winner - City of Rockingham
Environmental Innovation & Protection
• Highly Commended- City of Mandurah
• Category Winner - City of Cockburn
Water Conservation 
• Category Winner - City of Subiaco
Energy Innovation
• Highly Commended - Pilot CHERP Energy Project - City of Mandurah
• Category Winner - City of Rockingham
Heritage & Culture
• Highly Commended - City of Cockburn
• Category Winner - City of Perth
Young Legends
• Highly Commended - (SPYN) South Perth Youth Network for Secret Event (City of South Perth). $500 prize
• Category Winner - City of Cockburn

The Department of Environment and Conservation provides administrative and policy support to the Keep Australia Beautiful Council WA.

The Waste Authority is a sponsor of the program and is a statutory body of the State Government of WA, which provides independent policy advice to the Government on all waste management issues.

Full details of the awards are available from Keep Australia Beautiful www.kabc.wa.gov.au

SEA Media Release - 1 August 2012