Previous Winners of the SEN Sustainability Awards
Award Winners for 2010
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Economic Justice/Community Impact Audette Exel (YPO Sydney) The Isis Group |
Audette Exel (YPO Sydney) heads a financial services company with a social service mission.
Through The Isis Group and its nonprofit arm, The Isis Foundation, Exel pursues a higher calling: providing housing, health services, neo-natal care and education to mothers and children living in poverty in Uganda and Nepal. The foundation also operates residential care for children rescued from child traffickers.
Working in remote, rural locations, The Isis Foundation focuses on the village-by-village implementation of community programs that leverage alternative technology, renewable resources and other innovative solutions. The foundation serves more than 20,000 people annually and collaborates extensively with community groups and NGOs to create sustainable change at the grassroots level.
An active member of the YPO-WPO Economic Development Network, Exel is a business leader for whom the bottom line supports a better world.
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Employee Impact Dennis Overton (WPO Scotland) Ikirezi |
Dennis Overton (WPO Scotland) is doing far more than creating jobs – he is empowering entrepreneurs.
As the founder and managing director of Aquascot, sustainable seafood business based in Scotland, Overton became interested in social enterprise in Africa after a YPO-WPO economic development trip in 2007.
Now, through an agribusiness called Ikirezi, he is partnering with more than 1,000 Rwandan farmers to cultivate geraniums for the essential oils highly marketable in the United States and Europe. The Ikirezi business model is simple and straightforward: establish an enterprise that is ecologically sound, sustainable and capable of transforming life outcomes.
Two years after Ikirezi’s founding, the number of farmers involved continues to grow – and so do sales. By sharing his business know-how and empowering stakeholders, Overton is changing lives one crop at a time.
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Sustainable Environmental Business Practices Thomas Darden (WPO Rebel) Cherokee Investment Partners |
Thomas Darden (WPO Rebel) bought his first company built on contaminated soil nearly 30 years ago. That purchase inspired a business committed to environmental clean-ups.
His company, Cherokee Investment Partners, returns hazardous locations around the world to productive, environmentally-sound use, delivering results for clients that improve the environment and strengthen the bottom line.
The seed of Darden’s interest in the environment was planted in college, when he wrote a thesis on the environmental impact of third-world development. After purchasing a brick company located on contaminated soil in 1984, he faced his first professional environment challenge. The process of cleaning up the property inspired his interest in remediation.
Over the past 26 years, Cherokee has acquired more than 525 “brownfield” sites (hazardous, unusable locations) and cleaned and restored them to productive use.
Darden also operates a nonprofit organization, Cherokee Gives Back, which supports a wide range of social initiatives in sustainable development, education, job creation, care for orphans and volunteer remediation.
Cherokee Gives Back has committed up to US$1 million to the clean-up of the contaminated Union Carbide site in Bhopal, India, and is assisting with the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
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Leadership Gareth Ackerman (YPO Cape Town) Pick ‘n Pay |
Gareth Ackerman (YPO Cape Town) has guided his family’s business to a leadership position in CSR as one of the first retail companies in South Africa invited to join the Clinton Global Initiative.
The Pick ‘n Pay supermarket chain’s many initiatives include helping small farmers build capacity, a mentoring program pairing retired executives with farmers, green programs, and the development of a franchise model encouraging collaboration between communities, local food suppliers and retailers.
Four objectives guide the company’s CSR philosophy: economic sustainability, transformation, social development and environmental responsibility. The organization’s primary objective is creating jobs in the community – and helping farmers gain access to markets.
The family’s Ackerman Pick ‘n Pay Foundation also finances emerging entrepreneurs and provides technical assistance: helping to build markets for entrepreneurs in distressed communities, strengthening worker-owned enterprises, and purchasing produce from the farmers for sale in Pick ‘n Pay Stores.
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Philanthropic/Nonprofit Organization Marc Lubner (YPO Johannesburg Golden City) MaAfrika Tikkun |
As the CEO of MaAfrika Tikkun, Marc Lubner (YPO Johannesburg Golden City) is committed to improving the lives of South Africa’s poorest children.
His NGO pursues a holistic approach to poverty intervention in the townships of South Africa that begins in early childhood and continues through young adulthood. This support includes an early childhood development center, a youth center, computer and literacy training and employment assistance.
Frequently working in high-crime areas where violence can make it difficult to establish programs, MaAfrika Tikkun focuses on training local residents as youth mentors to ensure that programs are community-based and sustainable.
Since assuming leadership in 2005, Lubner has increased the nonprofit’s capacity ten-fold, from 2,000 to 20,000 children. He also wears a different hat as the co-founder of The Smile Foundation, which provides surgery for children with facial abnormalities.
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