At its 77th Annual General Meeting on 4 November 2015, the Chemical and Allied Industries Association (CAIA) announced the 2015 winners of its Responsible Care Award, the Responsible Care Haulier Award and the Responsible Care Initiative of the Year Award.

This year CAIA instituted a new award, The Responsible Care Initiative of the Year, which honours members’ efforts in corporate social responsibility projects that are sustainable. The award has two company size categories, determined by income turnover, and consists of a qualitative assessment based on relevance to management practice pillars and investment of company resources towards the initiative (financial, non-financial). Other factors that became important in the consideration were: 1. a business case need for the project and 2. the regularity of the project.

“Additionally, the Responsible Care Award and the Responsible Care Haulier Award look at the greatest year-on-year improvements in the four major categories of Responsible Care pillars, which are safety and health; resource efficiency; pollution prevention and product stewardship,” explains Deidré Penfold, executive director of CAIA.

The candidates are shortlisted by greatest net improvement, the sites visited and assessed from where the winners and runner(s)-up are determined.

Winners

The winner of the Responsible Care Haulier Award is Stellar Transport. Stellar Transport, as a dangerous goods transporter, offers a unique professional logistics solution to clients for the transportation of ammonium nitrate in bulk, explosives and related hazardous chemicals. The directors of Stellar Transport have over 50 years and three generations of experience in the industry.

The winner of the Responsible Care Award is Impala Platinum Limited. Implats is in the business of mining, refining and marketing platinum group metals, as well as nickel, copper and cobalt. Implats’ mining interests are found on the two most significant known platinum group mineral-bearing orebodies in the world. Being a blue-chip resource investment, its shareholders are drawn from across the globe. In addition to its listing on the JSE in South Africa, the company also trades as a level 1 American Depository Share in the US.

The winner of the Initiative of the Year Award, Category B (large companies) is EnviroServ Waste Management for its Zandis Angels Project. Its Corporate Social Responsibility executive committee was told about Zandis Angels, an orphanage in dire circumstances. It had no hesitation in buying a house in Boksburg North, Gauteng and renovating it to standards legislated for childcare. Twenty-one children now have a place to call home, with each child having a bed of his or her own.

The winner of the Initiative of the Year Award, Category A (smaller companies) is XP Ibhayi Environmental Specialists trading as Xtreme Projects for its Pop-up Shop for the Homeless Project. Xtreme Projects, which is based in Nelson Mandela Bay, brought cheers and smiles to those living on Port Elizabeth’s streets through a massive clothing handover along Park Drive, St Georges Park. Set up as a pavement pop-up shop, the event was organised in a way to get the homeless to “shop” for the clothing items – the only difference with a real shop being that they would not pay anything.

“We are delighted with this year’s standard of entries and believe that CAIA’s continued training programme in the Responsible Care initiative is paying off. We intend to increase the level of training and number of courses offered in 2016,” concludes Penfold.