19 Oct 2017 Masterton named New Zealand’s most beautiful city Keep New Zealand Beautiful were thrilled to announce the winners of the 2017 Beautiful Awards at a Gala Dinner, held at the Craggy Range Vineyard in Hastings. Masterton took out the top prize for Most Beautiful City, with Greytown and Feilding winning most beautiful small and large towns, respectively. Awards were also presented to sustainable schools, businesses and hard working volunteers throughout New Zealand. Heather Saunderson, CEO of Keep New Zealand Beautiful, said, “The Beautiful Awards celebrate all contributions great and small – from the most beautiful city, to the volunteer who single–handedly collected over 700kg of rubbish this year – these awards recognise the places, businesses and people who Do The Right Thing day in and day out to Keep New Zealand Beautiful. We are incredibly proud of the Beautiful Awards and look forward to continuing to grow these awards in 2018.” The judging panel said there were very strong submissions across all categories, which made selecting the winners incredibly hard. Full list of winners of the Keep New Zealand Beautiful Awards Beautiful Towns and Cities These awards recognise and celebrate beautiful towns and cities right across New Zealand. They acknowledge positive actions that have been taken by communities to protect and enhance their local environments. These prestigious awards encompass initiatives such as litter prevention, recycling, protection of the environment, preserving heritage, community action and leadership and environmental sustainability programmes. Most Beautiful Suburb Winner: Havelock North Havelock North is the vibrant heart in the Hawkes Bay. Despite its growth in recent years, Havelock North has still managed to maintain its intimate village feel. A ‘must visit’ destination for anyone travelling to the province they call Wine Country. Most Beautiful Small Town Winner: Greytown Known for its great food and sophisticated shopping, cute colonial cottages, historic trees and extraordinary chocolate. With its small, owner operated shops that are high quality and distinctive, Greytown offers the antithesis of big box shopping or bland and samey malls you find in many large centres. This small town is definitely a gem of the Wairarapa Most Beautiful Large Town Winner: Feilding The charming town of Feilding is where you will be met with red-bricked pavements and streets, stunning flower beds, and a warm elegance. The small town atmosphere offers an escape from the hustle and bustle, where walking into shops you are met with a friendly smile, and the kind hospitality that has earned this town the label of ‘Friendly Feilding’. Most Beautiful City Winner: Masterton Masterton blew away the judges with their wide range of environmental and heritage conservation projects, and the strength of their community engagement with numerous community groups working hard to make Masterton a safer and more beautiful community. Community Awards Community Environmental Initiative Award This award honours innovative projects that have achieved extraordinary environmental results by harnessing the power of partnership. Winner: Tuakau Clean Up & Planting Group Each year the Tuakau Clean Up and Planting Group hosts a large clean up and planting day whilst engaging the community to take pride in their place, care for the environment, contribute to waste reduction and beautification of shared spaces. Community Group Award This award recognises and honours a not-for-profit community group that contributes to enhancing the environmental and social aspects of their region and additionally shows a strong sense of community spirit. Winner: Wakatipu Reforestation Trust The Wakatipu Reforestation Trust has grown locally eco-sourced seeds from their own nursery and empowered the community through Spring and Autumn plantings days to re-establish the native ecosystem of the Wakatipu Basin. Sustainable School Award The Sustainable Schools Award, proudly sponsored by New Zealand Couriers, annually honours a teacher, school or tertiary institution for commitment and practical action to implement sustainable practices and environmental projects, which enhance the school and/or community. This award is sponsored by New Zealand Couriers and the recipient is awarded $2,000 to fund environmental educational activities in the winner’s classroom, school or tertiary institution. Winner: Morgan Educare As part of their strategic plan, Morgan Educare have installed solar energy, set up recycling stations, established vegetable gardens, composting and worm farms and taken on many more other actions to work towards their environmental goals based around sustainability. Kiwi’s Choice This award, proudly sponsored by Resene, recognises a favourite public spot in New Zealand based on its location, facilities, natural beauty, man-made beauty, cleanliness, popularity, and uniqueness. Winner: Akaroa Akaroa is a historic ocean side town, a short drive from Christchurch. It has beautiful and pristine water, with opportunities to go crab spotting in and around the rock pools on the water’s edge as well as rare Hectors dolphins that swim in the harbour. Best Loo This award recognises the best public loo in the country based on the location, the facilities, cleanliness, interior, exterior and the surrounding environment of the loo. Winner: Mt Hutt Ski Area Set at an altitude of 1610m, Mt Hutt Ski Area toilets are not only modern, clean and accessible; but their clever design has successfully solved a vast array of existing problems. Sustainable Business Awards Recognising businesses that have purposefully and successfully made choices that are good for the future of New Zealand’s environment. Most Sustainable Small Business – less than 20 staff Winner: Ecoware Ecoware are contributing to a plastic free New Zealand vision by providing a wide variety of sustainable of packaging solutions to a variety of networks and are proud to be New Zealand’s first CarboNZero certified packaging company. Most Sustainable Business Winner: Ricoh New Zealand Ricoh impressed the judges with their success in adopting an industry leadership approach to environmental sustainability throughout their operations; and in their focus on factoring environmental sustainability into all areas of their business. Most Sustainable Business Project This award honours New Zealand businesses who have achieved extraordinary results through an environmental or sustainability project in the past 12months. Winner: Hawkes Bay Farmers Market The Hawkes Bay Farmers Market has introduced a waste minimisation initiative meaning that all stallholders have changed their takeaway and tasting packaging to compostable options to promote sustainability of the market to the public. Individual Awards Young Legend Award The Young Legend Award honours an outstanding volunteer under the age of 18. This exceptional young man or woman will have demonstrated remarkable leadership and outreach in his or her community through work in the areas of litter prevention, waste reduction, recycling promotion and beautification. Winner: Joanna Tao Joanna has a passion for the environment and is dedicated to supporting the various organisations within New Zealand and worldwide, that encourage action in the way of environmental improvements. Tidy Kiwi Award The Tidy Kiwi Award recognises and rewards an individual who has distinguished himself or herself as truly extraordinary and serves as an inspiration to us all. This award honours outstanding and exceptional leadership in litter prevention, waste reduction, recycling and beautification activities. Winner: Tom Carr Every day, Tom works on cleaning up his local community on his way to and from work. It is estimated that since last year he had picked up about 700kg of rubbish during his 2.5-kilometre walk each day. Ruud Kleinpaste Award This award is in honor of Ruud Kleinpaste and is given to the Keep New Zealand Beautiful member whose efforts to positively enhance the organisation’s mission and values. They always go above and beyond expectations. Winner: Linda Keall Linda works tirelessly to galvanise the local volunteer base in Christchurch, coordinating various logistics for graffiti eradication initiatives, clean-up events, educational programming as well as community led projects. Linda works to promote a cleaner, more beautiful environment within Christchurch, and to raise the level of awareness of what the individual can do to improve his or her community and reduce litter. — Ends — For all media enquiries, please contact: Heather Saunderson – CEO heather@knzb.org.nz 021 280 0642 Share this page
