Greenest Municipality Competition Winners 2014

The winners of the 2014 Greenest Municipality Competition have been announced. This year the greenest local municipality in the Western Cape is Mossel Bay Municipality while Eden District Municipality won the award for district municipalities.

The winners were announced at an awards ceremony on Monday evening (03 November), hosted by the Provincial Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Anton Bredell.

Minister Bredell reminded attendees of the challenges placing government structures under increasing pressure. These include older prevalent challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality as well as new challenges like climate change.

“There is no alternative any more. We must think and do things different ly. And that is why events like the Greenest Municipality Competition is one that I am proud of. This competition requires from municipalities to become actively involved in advancing the objectives of the Green Economy. The Green Economy refers to initiatives like solar energy, greening programmes and programmes which reduce greenhouse emissions. These are all issues that are very important for our municipalities and their communities.”

This year’s event was sponsored by Santam.

Mr Temba Mvusi, Executive Head of Market Development had the following to say: “We at Santam believe our work does not only benefit the insurance industry in managing the risk pool, but at the same time builds resilience and sustainability in the communities in which we operate”.

The Greenest Municipality Competition aims to promote improved service delivery that restores community pride and commitment to caring for the living environment. It also focuses on improved integrated sustainable development strategies serves to impr ove service delivery by municipalities.

This year the winners were

GREENEST MUNICIPALITY 2014 :
Local Municipalities 
Mossel Bay Municipality 
Prize Money : R 130 000

2 nd Place: Hessequa Municipality
Prize Money: R 70 000

3 rd Place: Knysna Municipality
Prize Money: R 50 000

District Municipalities
1 st Place: Eden District Municipality
Prize Money : R 120 000

Tied 2 nd Place: West Coast District Municipality and Cape Winelands District Municipality
Prize Money: R 50 000

3 rd Place: Overberg District Municipality
Prize Money: R 30 000

Every municipality is at the heart of service delivery. This competition is an opportunity to build a foundation between our communities and our spheres of government. While this competition recognises strong and innovative leadership, it is first and foremost a fresh approach to ensuring that each municipality considers its environmental footprint. It calls for municipalities to interact with their communities while being aware of its organisational ability with respect to the competition focus areas.

Elements that were evaluated for the Greenest Municipality Competition include waste management, energy efficiency and conservation, biodiversity Management, water management and conservation, air quality management, leadership, Institutional Arrangements and public participation.

20 out of 29 eligible municipalities in the Western Cape participated in this year’s competition.

Karen Shippey, Director Sustainability heads up the Competition and she shared with us what the GMC means for the Western Cape.

“The Greenest Municipality Competition is an opportunity for us to encourage innovation and inspire our Municipalities to provide service delivery in a manner that also protects our resources and environment for the future. We are thrilled to celebrate these achievements with our hard working municipal colleagues”.