New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards

Mining and social benefits brought together

16 October 2007

A system that grades mining sites for their environmental impacts and benefits was announced a category finalist in the 2007 New Zealand Engineering Excellence (NZEE) Awards today.

In collaboration with MWH engineers and environmental scientists, Solid Energy created a national-first – a web-based environmental monitoring and reporting system. The system is known as EMeasure.

The third New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for New Zealand engineering professionals. The awards are presented in two major areas: Individual Awards, that recognise leadership, entrepreneurship, and our young engineers; and Category Awards, that recognise achievement in the various industry areas, together with a Supreme Award for the best of the Category winners.

Solid Energy is New Zealand’s largest indigenous energy producer, with active coal mining operations situated in the coal fields of the Waikato, the South Island’s West Coast and Southland.

Using Emeasure, staff, external consultants and site stakeholders grade the site’s environmental impacts and benefits in seventeen categories. The system was developed and implemented in 2003 to show how Solid Energy’s activities track against its policy goal of ‘net positive benefit to the New Zealand environment’. Solid Energy reports its cumulative effects on the environment in its Annual Environmental Report.

The Emeasure system differs from other commonly used performance tracking systems because it shows actual impacts from mining activities, especially operational environmental performance and improvement, not just compliance with legislation and permits. It also promotes transparency in reporting environmental outcomes at Solid Energy sites to communities close to operational and rehabilitation sites; and helps site operators know what standards are required and what work is needed to achieve or exceed them.
Emeasure is a first-of-a-kind project for New Zealand as perhaps for the world.

David Elms, Convenor of the Category Awards judging panel said that the calibre of finalist projects highlighted the contribution that professional engineers make to New Zealand on a social, economic and environmental scale.

“These projects made the finalist cut because they each are outstanding examples of engineering innovation”, says Mr Elms. “This year’s finalists impressed the judges by demonstrating how their projects contributed to the national economy and the reputation of New Zealand engineering and impacted on quality of life in their communities”.

Winners of both individual and category awards will be announced at a black-tie gala dinner at TE PAPA, Wellington on Wednesday, 21 November 2007.

The New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are hosted by a consortium of five partners and 10 contributing organisations. The partners are: Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE); Association of Local Government Engineering New Zealand Incorporated (INGENIUM); Electricity Engineers Association of New Zealand (EEA); Association of Consulting Engineers New Zealand (ACENZ); and the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand Inc (IPENZ).

Media enquiries contact:

Verona-Meiana Putaranui, NZEE Awards Media Co-ordinator

Email: media@ipenz.org.nz

Phone: +64 4 473 2028 or Cell: +64 21 479885