Management Excellence Awards

“Earth Care Ops (ECO) is the new Auckland Regional Council's (ARC) kids website. It was developed to get the messages of the Big Clean Up (BCU) out to children. The BCU is the ARC's major public educational and social marketing programme promoting sustainable practices directed at households. The BCU is a 10 point plan that targets householders providing simple actions that individuals can take for each of the points. Simply delivering the messages of the BCU to children in a passive way was unlikely to be effective, so the site aimed not merely to educate children, but to encourage them to become active in protecting and enhancing our environment.”

“Local authorities face new requirements to explicitly base decision making on community priorities.  The Taranaki local authorities have responded to this challenge in a very genuine way that defines current best practice.  The councils have put aside parochial interests in acknowledgement that communities of interest, their priorities and the means to deliver on them will often transcend territorial borders.  This collaborative approach has made it easier for major organisations, which tend to operate regionally, to engage with this and following downstream council processes. Collaboration has also placed high-quality research within affordable reach of all of the councils.”