The Product Stewardship Excellence Awards return for 2022 to recognise excellence and action in product stewardship and raise the profile of stewardship in business, government and non-government organisations (NGOs).
This year’s award categories have been refreshed to better reflect the diversity of product stewardship within collective schemes and individual businesses.
Product stewardship aims to reduce waste generation through better design and manufacture of products, including the use of materials that are easier to recover, reuse and recycle.
Dr Damien Giurco, Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence Director and chairman of the judging panel, said the new award categories include an emissions reduction category to showcase the role stewardship can play in striving towards a low carbon economy.
“Through the 2022 awards we will showcase product stewardship initiatives that are making an impact and inspiring others to integrate product stewardship into their businesses.
“How a product is designed determines 80 per cent of its lifecycle so good design matters. To increase circularity, product stewardship thinking from the design stage, materials selection, through manufacturing, transport, retail, re-use, repair and recycling needs to be a priority.”
There are six award categories that schemes, businesses and NGOs can enter, while one category, Product Stewardship Champion of the Year, will be directly conferred by the Centre of Excellence.
The 2022 award categories are: Best Stewardship Outcomes – Collective Scheme, Best Stewardship Outcomes – Individual Business or Brand (Large 200+ employees), Best Stewardship Outcomes – Individual Business or Brand (SME < 199 employees), Excellence in Digitalisation for Product Stewardship , Excellence in Emissions Reduction through Product Stewardship and Excellence in Design for Product Stewardship.
The 12 person awards jury includes Tom Metzner, President, Product Stewardship Institute (USA), Cameron Hutchison, Waste Policy and Planning, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Brandon Gien, Chief Executive Officer, Good Design Awards, Meredith Newell, Environment Project Officer, Local Government Association Northern Territory and Helen Lewis, Adjunct Professor, Institute for Sustainable Futures and Product Stewardship Advisor.
Award entries close on 31 August 2022. Award winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Sydney Thursday, 27 October 2022.
For more information, visit: www.stewardshipexcellence.com.au/awards
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