Surrey, B.C. – On Thursday, September 14th, the Surrey Board of Trade presented four winners with the Surrey Environment and Business Awards at the 11th annual event. The awards were presented to Surrey Board of Trade members or Surrey-based businesses that have demonstrated exceptional dedication to environmental leadership and/or issues. The award recipients are guided by a sense of respect for the environment and demonstrate this initiative consistently.
This year’s winners are:
Small Business Award – The Eco Floor Store
Founded in 2010, The Eco Floor Store brings together healthy living and environmental awareness as it relates to the flooring and surfaces in your home. The Eco Floor Store sources their products from companies who demonstrate sound ecological and environmental commitments. Additionally, they purchase wind power credits to offset their electrical usage, and are regular course lecturers at BCIT, providing education content to budding interior design students on green building materials.
Medium Business Award – SFU – PowerPAD
PowerPAD (standing for Power: Portable and Disposable) is a game-changing sustainable power solution, developed through SFU’s Fuel Cell Research Lab in the School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering. The PowerPAD is a tiny patent-pending flow-cell battery just one inch in diameter that can produce power at a few volts for 100 minutes. Made entirely of organic materials, unlike conventional batteries, which require metals to release charge, it is activated by just a few drops of water. Once finished, the PowerPAD can be simply thrown in the compost to biodegrade. It is inexpensive and requires little energy to manufacture. The potential uses of this waste-free technology are limited only by the imagination—from supplying personal power needs while in remote areas to powering small electronic devices for environmental, health and safety, defence and other sectors and in developing countries. This technology was developed by Associate Professor Dr. Eric Kjeang and PhD student Mr. Omar A. Ibrahim, in collaboration with Instituto de Microelectronica de Barcelona in Spain.
Large Business Award – Dillon Consulting Limited
Dillon Consulting Limited is a professional firm with over 600 staff specializing in planning, engineering, and environmental sciences. The City of Surrey’s Salmon Habitat Restoration Program (SHaRP) is a unique and innovative community-based environmental stewardship program conceived and successfully delivered by Dillon in partnership with the City of Surrey since 1996. City engineers recognized the harmful impacts of urbanization on both channel conveyance and salmon and other aquatic life inhabiting Surrey’s 1,500 kilometres of open waterways and Council resolved to mitigate these harmful effects through a series of measures that included the development of an annual, youth-led program focusing on the restoration of impacted stream channels and fish habitat. The program has evolved into a watershed-based initiative that promotes environmental sustainability through the delivery of habitat enhancement, environmental education and public outreach components. Since 1996, SHaRP has contributed to over 230,000 stewardship hours, engaged with over 2,000 businesses and homeowners, distributed over 20,000 brochures, and planted over 75,500 native plants.
A Circular Economy Award was also presented this year. The winner has demonstrated that they re-invent, re-think and re-define how they use materials. They keep resources in use for as long as possible, extracting the maximum value from them while in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life.
Circular Economy Award – Lafarge Canada Inc.
Lafarge Canada Inc., a member of LafargeHolcim, is Canada’s largest provider of solutions to the construction and development industry. By 2030, LafargeHolcim strives to quadruple their current volumes of recycled aggregate production from construction and demolition waste and to transform waste materials into 80 million tonnes per year of new resources. Lafarge’s circular economy initiative can be seen throughout Metro Vancouver where they have launched their aggneo™ product. Every tonne of aggneo™ used in construction is one tonne of concrete and asphalt demolition rubble that will avoid the landfill and has a new life as a sustainable construction material, while also preserving virgin aggregate reserves for the future. Some projects where aggneo™ has contributed to sustainable construction projects are:
- Fedex Building (10288 Grace Road, Surrey) – 11,200 tonnes of aggneo™ for parking lot
- Highway 15 (32 Avenue to 96 Avenue, Surrey) – 20,000 tonnes of aggneo™ as sub-base
- Highway 99 and 16 Avenue Interchange (Surrey) – 10,000 tonnes of aggneo™ as granular base and shouldering gravel
- Golden Ears Connector (Surrey) – 20,000 tonnes of aggneo™ as sub-base
In 2016, Lafarge was able to recycle and supply 126,000 tonnes of reclaimed asphalt and 127,000 tonnes of concrete rubble as new, high quality construction material for use on municipal, provincial, and private infrastructure projects in Metro Vancouver.
The 11th Annual Surrey Board of Trade Environment and Business Awards Luncheon event also featured keynote speaker Lois Jackson, Mayor of Delta. Mayor Jackson spoke on the George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project. There was also an update from the City of Surrey’s Environment Committee, presented by Councillor Mike Starchuk.
Award Sponsors: Exp Services Inc.
Media Sponsor: News 1130 and the Surrey NOW-Leader Newspaper
For further information, please contact Anita Huberman, CEO, Surrey Board of Trade, at anita@businessinsurrey.com or at 604.634.0342.
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