| |
| Gold Winner for Global Best Sustainable Development 2007 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
 |
Gold Winner of the Home Overseas Magazine Award
During the Places in the Sun Expo in London earlier this year, Limpopo-Lipadi was approached by the Homes Overseas magazine to submit an application to enter their global awards competition. Homes Overseas said that we should enter the “sustainability” category because they had not seen anything like the Limpopo- Lipadi sustainability approach before. We were initially a bit reluctant to enter because we thought “How can we compete with all these unbelievable developments from all over the world and can we afford the time to enter?” Here we must thank Fiona Smit who always thought that would be in with a chance. Fiona was on my case every day and she did not give up – a special thanks to Fiona for her belief in Limpopo-Lipadi and for persuading us that we must “go for it”.
We prepared the Limpopo-Lipadi sustainability model in the Home Overseas awards format and submitted it to the Homes Overseas judging panel for consideration. A few months later, we were informed that Limpopo-Lipadi’s submission had been evaluated by the judging panel and that we had made the short list in our category.
A judge was sent out from the UK to visit Limpopo-Lipadi and score us against their sustainability criteria. We took the judge to the reserve and covered our detailed approaches both shown in our documentation and
more importantly how it was being implemented on the ground. Our corporate social responsibility Motse company supported us fantastically and this made a huge impression on the judges.
The judge who visited Limpopo-Lipadi returned to the UK and wrote an independent report that he submitted to the judging panel for evaluation. We scored 82% on this report and were not sure if that was enough to get any award. We were contacted by Home Overseas who said that we must attend the awards ceremony in London on the 4th December.
We still did not realize how big this award was and how important it is to all of us. Gary, Fiona, Joe and I went to the awards ceremony held at the Royal Gardens Hotel in London. We looked quite strange in suits and would have been far more comfortable in our bush gear. The event was much bigger and more prestigious than we could have imagined and when it was announced that we won the gold award for the best sustainable project in the world, we could not believe it.
The Home Overseas Awards are the premiere global awards for homes and developments outside the UK market. The ceremony afforded us the chance to meet with all sections of the UK press who were amazed by our story. The press coverage will begin in January with a very carefully planned PR campaign targeting the major and local newspapers. We were told repeatedly by the judges that they have not seen anything like our sustainability model anywhere in the world and this was very encouraging for all of us.
| Press Release Limpopo-Lipadi Reserve, 04-12-2007 |
[ Back ] |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
