The Sanctuary Awards have been recognising outstanding sustainability and conservation efforts across the MOD, since 1991. The awards celebrate group and individual-led projects that are benefitting sustainable development and helping to conserve the environment, natural resources and heritage across Defence’s UK and overseas estate.
The award categories reflect the MOD’s sustainability agenda and our commitment to achieving the government’s environmental and sustainability goals. The winners of each category are considered for the coveted Silver Otter Trophy, presented to the best conservation effort on the MOD estate, and the Sustainable Business Award for the best larger scale or commercial project. The Innovation Award is awarded from all the shortlisted nominations and is presented to the project best exemplifying innovative behaviours.
Read more: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/33rd-sanctuary-awards-celebrate-sustainability-and-conservation-achievements-across-defence
Good afternoon everybody it g gives me great pleasure to welcome you all both in the room and virtually to the 33rd Ministry of Defense Sanctuary Awards my name is Richard Brooks I’m a principal environmental manager with the defense infrastructure organization and I’ll be hosting today’s suy alongside my
Colleague Alex how who will introduce herself shortly you’re joining us live today from portsmore Naval base from where we will be announcing this year’s results the sanctuary team are hugely grateful to rear Admiral Bey director of Naval staff for enabling us to bring today’s event here and who will present
Today’s Awards alongside Major General Clemens director Army basing and infrastructure the Earl of MTO the minister of State for defense was hoping to be here with us today in Portsmouth as well but ministerial business has kept him in whitall so he will be delivering our opening address from
London we are joined here in the theater not only by this year’s hosts but also by all of the award recipients as well the sanctuary Awards have been celebrating outstanding sustainability and conservation projects across defense for more than three decades and the winners here today have all gone above
And beyond to advance this vital agenda there are six award categories to be revealed today plus the winners of The Innovation award the silver otter Trophy and the sustainable business award the winners of the silver otter and the sustainable Business Awards are chosen from today’s category winners the
Results remain a closely guarded secret and will be renounced towards the end of the ceremony so so please stick with us this is our first ever hybrid award ceremony so we are really excited but a little bit nervous as well we would love to hear from our
Virtual audience out there so please do send us your comments or photos of where you are today on X using the hasht sanctuary Awards and copy in the handle Ministry defense di or you can join in the chat on the YouTube feed before we go before we begin to
Announce the winners I would like to welcome the Earl of MTO to give the opening address good afternoon everyone it’s a privilege to address the sanctuary awards today and while it’s a shame for me that can’t join you owing to parliamentary votes I’m absolutely delighted to be able to deliver this
Opening address and to offer my heartfelt support for your important work as we can all appreciate CH changes to the climate will have an inevitable impact not only on our daily lives but on our work defense does not exist in isolation so we must adapt and indeed
The reverse is true defense as an organization can also have a positive impact on the environment as many many of you will know the ministry of Defense EST State spans 1% of the entire landmass within the UK the equivalent size of the islands of both Lewis and Harris or the Lake District National
Park and our emissions account for some extraordinary level of 50% of central government’s total so we have a big role to play in this and I’m delighted to see that we are already stepping up recent flights by RAF Voyager air CFT have proved both that 100% sustainable
Fuel can power our aircraft and be used for air-to-air refueling and that is just one example of the headwinds that we are making in our capabilities I’m sure there are many others when you look at the estate itself I was both astounded and delighted in equal measure to hear that
Just last year defense diverted 97% of our waste away from landfill and since 2019 we have reduced our carb footprint by 14% And many more initiatives and bright ideas such of yours have been taken up besides and that is why the sanctuary awards are so important in shining the
Spotlight on the Innovation imagination and investment which at times goes under the radar whether that is creating solar farms at Army Camps or upcycling Old Navy life rafts to make backpacks whether it’s protecting Barnes on S plane or bees at curbridge or whether it’s keeping a microscopic eye on nutes
In gosport or Nat Jack toads in the wmer forest your commitment to conservation and sustainability should be celebrated championed and commended I will shortly hand over to Alex how our deputy director for climate change and sustainability but before I do let me say this whether or not you win a
Sanctuary award today you should all be extremely proud you are leading the way you are having a positive impact on the environment and I urge you all to keep pushing forward and to keep sewing the seeds for a brighter future thank you very much and enjoy the afternoon thank you very much Minister
We really appreciate your support for these Awards and for your championing of climate change and sustainability across defense with your leadership and that of those in the room today and online we can collectively drive real change across defense and mitigate the impact of climate change on security both here
At home in the UK and around the world hello I’m Alexandra how deputy director of Mod’s director for leveling up the union climate change sustainability and environment um in it referred to internally as Lux which is obviously takes much less time to say um and along with Richard I’m really excited to be
Announcing our amazing Century Award winners here today with the trophies being presented by by re Admiral Bey and Major General Clemens uh the sanctuary awards were judged by a dedicated panel whose members have all some form of sustainability in their background and as you can see they come from a really
Wide range of disciplines our judging panel used an online portal to review all the longlisted nominations reading a huge range of incredibly unique projects from across the whole of Defense each judge could allocate a maximum of 30 points to each nomination before all the panel met in person to discuss and moderate the
Results I’m not sure how they agree a were to agree with so many great projects and the great people nominated but then they were able to reach a group’s consensus on the winners and Runners up the panel also decided which of the category winners would be taking
At home our very special silver a try and coveted sustainable business award today and once again the standard of the entries was really high this year so thank you to everyone who took the time to submit a nomination and now to get to the exciting part let’s find out who the
Judges have chosen as this year’s Sanctuary Award winners today we start with the environmental enhancement award this award considered projects focused on wildlife and biodiversity Environmental Research or tackling pollution and contamination issues and the second place Sanctuary 2023 environmental enhancement award goes to the Army solar biodiversity Network [Applause]
So as part of the solar biodiversity Network within the sanctuary award we’re here at Duke of glester Barracks um stood in amongst this calcarius grassland this rare ancient calcarius grassland because as part of the mitigation plan for the solar farm uh we need to to make sure that we can improve
The quality of this um extremely rare grass grassland and I’ve got CLA Ridge here to tell us a little bit how that happened hello uh so um we already had a farmer maintain the grass or collecting the grass and um we met with the ecologist to ensure that um anything we
Did to the land uh preserved it and increased the growth so uh we met with the farmer and the ecologist worked out a plan including a rotation of certain areas to ensure that um they were kept in the best possible environment um and then um I drafted a license um to
Include making regular contact with the farmer to ensure that he was mowing and harrowing at times in the year that also fitted in with um the requirements of the area that’s brilliant CLA and also we’ve got this planting as well to improve the biodiversity net gain and
Also screen the solar farm from the road as well which also adds something to the ecology as well doesn’t it it does it does so as well as the work that we’ve done here at juk of glosser Barracks over in rock Barracks we’ve also did a significant amount of work um to ensure
That the habitat of the stone curly wasn’t impacted by the solar farm that we were we were building there there as well um that involved uh a lot of uh work with rspb locally and actually we moved the entire solar farm significantly to make sure in the first
Instance there didn’t an impact on any ground nesting Burns including the stone curly uh Baker Barracks is nestled within a number of trip sis and also sites of international importance and the significant species in that context was the brown belly geese that was using the area that we were going to be
Putting the solar farm on or we planning to putting the solar farm on for feeding over the winter we looked at the solar farm subsequently to its construction is that there’s a significant amount of biodiversity net gain we think within the solar farm uh wi wire itself um so
As a result theologists are looking extensively in the future to see if we can actually quantify that which can then inform future Sol of farm developments great so congratulations and can the representatives of the solar Army solar biodiversity Network please make their way to the stage [Applause] [Applause]
And now let’s find out who has won the sanctuary 2023 environmental enhancement Award winner is the submarine biofouling project my name is Lizzie brw my name’s heish M my name’s Alex Wright I’m and I work at the submarine delivery agency based in Bristol yeah so biof filing is
The accumulation of marine species or Marine structures uh it happens not just on Navy ships but commercial ships private yachts even if you take a kayak out for long enough you’re going to get biof filing on there uh the bof filing project started in about 2019 where we
Identified that there was a risk of introducing or potentially introducing invasive non-native species from uh what the both surface ships and submarines carry on sort of holes and in water spaces uh we conducted many different activities on the CDE so when a boat is alongside we uh were supported
By BR Navy divers to be able to collect samples from the submarine that we could then identify we also uh installed settlement panels alongside the birs as a as a as a means of determining the types of marine species which would colonize those settlement panels we also
Conducted surveys when the boat was out of the water in the shiplift uh it provides access to niches uh such as grates and grills and the the tanks so we could better establish the different marine species that can be present in different parts of a submarine it’s been a really great
Project to work with from aod reputation point of view um it’s been able to upskill and get a lot of people that have been sort of office-based environmental managers out on site um we’ve been able to utilize exper te with the scientists within Plymouth Marine laborat to really understand a bit more
About what might be there in CDE from an eological point of view so the baring project was a collaborative effort we needed a diverse set of skills across the ministry of defense and our contractors uh Babcock uh maintenance up in Clyde as well as a Kings Harbor Master were absolutely essential to the
Success of our Project a huge congratulations to our first winners of the day let’s welcome the submarine bof filing project representatives to the [Applause] stage for those joining us online we’re just squeezing in a quick photo before we move on to the next award e congratulations again now we move on to the net zero and
Resource efficiency award here the judges were looking at the projects that contribute to the ministry of defense’s Net Zero carbon ambition this was an extremely tightly fought category with the judging panel being unable to pick between our Runners up so we’ve decided to give two second place Awards our first joint second place
Award for the Net Zero resource and Energy Efficiency award goes to the AMR uh defense Services contribution to the greeting government’s Commitments Hi I’m ja bford I’ve been working with Aron Mark for over six years as a key account manager on the hessia contract in 2018 over 12,000 tons of waste was generated by approximately 50,000 troops 3,500 staff across 127 locations our main mission with Aramark has been to
Reduce waste by 15% overall reduce waste that goes to landfill to under 5% uh increase recycling to over 70% measure and report on food Waste be well do well is our environmental social and governance platform and it’s embedded in our mod contracts one of the goals in the framework is to reduce waste working together with green zone we have some fantastic initiatives that feed into this and it wouldn’t be possible POs to
Achieve what we have done without everyone’s commitment to be well do well food recycling has been implemented at all sites where food was being disposed of through the general waste the changes and successes were communicated by traditional and digital platforms an e-learning presentation was also created and uploaded to the mod
Net all of these factors have minimized environmental impact this in turn has set a benchmark for successful Waste Management in the mod great and if I could invite the team down to collect their [Applause] award congratulations again and now I’m particularly proud to say that our SEC joint second place Net
Zero and resource efficiency award goes to the defense uh climate change defense and resilience awareness course to build defense’s own climate change resilience and awareness course a huge riy of people contributed scientific political economic and geog graphical information on slides and in many videos combined with the military experiences recorded in individuals
Photographs and words after editing I turned to defense Academy to make this material into an inspiring interactive course the close collaboration revealed superb professionalism Technical and autistic talent and above all a deep interest and willingness to enliven complex subject matter their dedication to explaining the climate change challenge for defense
Was outstanding so that our people can exploit the course and resources to understand why and how we must become sustainable in every sense of the word the defense Academy provides training and education for personnel in the UK Armed Forces civil service and other government departments and for service Personnel from other nations I
Have responsibility for capability development acquisition Environmental Protection and Innovation education and my team are well placed to assist with the development of an online climate change course that stresses the importance of cultural and behavioral change of cost defense and the role that we as individuals can play the final
Stage of course development involves the translation of the approved module story boards into interactive digital learning resources which is where my team of developers and I come in the team did a fantastic job of combining interactions videos animations imagery and written content into five informative and engaging modules that are a credit to
The hard work that went into writing and cating the content great congratulations please can I invite the awareness course team to the [Applause] stage and now to the winner of our hotly contested 2023 Net Zero emal resource efficiency award the Army Energy Efficiency incentivization award scheme launched the Energy Efficiency
Incentivization scheme in 2022 the aims of the scheme were to save energy save money and save on carbon emissions the competition worked by incentivizing our people to use less energy through simple behavioral changes such as powering off unused devices turning down Heating and Reporting faults promptly in return for their
Efforts entrance could win money to spend on improving their local infrastructure we received entries from large stations small units regulars and reserves representing almost half of the Army’s energy consumption each unit was compared against their own previous energy consumption to establish a fair Baseline we analyzed data from various
Sources to produce the overall rankings a judging panel of Army and Di selected the winners and handed out £650,000 in Grant prizes first prize of25 5,000 was awarded to Lucas station in five taking part in this competition was a terrific opportunity for us to reduce our own energy consumption while encouraging
Those service Personnel on station to continue good practice uh it gives the the soldiers the ability to cook their own food um so on the off chance that they miss the scoff timings or um if they just want to have something different they uh they have the choice
To cook what they want um and what they prefer so we we got awarded roughly £6,000 there thereabouts um and I put it towards transforming an old rundown old RF adventurous training stall and trying to transform it into a St conditioning piece overall the scheme saved 11,000 tons of carbon emissions it
Also saved £ 3.7 million that’s a huge credit to everybody who took part in the competition congratulations please can I invite the Army energy efficency the incentivization team to the stage to collect their [Applause] award thank you again it’s very important that our winners get their momentum of the day as
Well that’s why we’re doing the photographs um but up next is the sustainable procurement and construction award uh for this category the judges were looking at projects that improve the sustainability of equipment for services as well as innovation in building materials and design and in second place the award
Goes to the demolition of the Redundant liquid waste treatment plant at awe order Masten awe has been supporting the UK’s National Security for over 70 years and we’re now undertaking a major development program including building a campus for science for the next 70 years and Beyond to make way for the new
Buildings we demolish over 150 buildings existing on site this included the Redundant liquid waste treatment plant this was the largest building on site when was built in the 1980s we’ve had many successes in terms of sustainability this has included on-site reuse of waste concrete which reduced both the volume of material sent off
Site and the volume of material imported to site reduced vehicle movements have resulted in smaller carbon footprint wastewater treatment and rainwater harvesting hydrated vegetable oil hvo was used instead of regular diesel again reducing carbon carbon emissions and 99.98% of the waste from the site was recycled we’ve also had some significant
Challenges not least working within the constraints of being on one of the most secure sites in the UK and throughout the work we needed to ensure operations would continue uninterrupted and safely predevelopment ecological surveys identified paragan Vulcans were nesting on the building as an enhancement measure three artificial nest boxes were
Installed Elsewhere on the estate demolition only began once the breeding season was over and the area continued to be monitored throughout the works the nest boxes were empty for a while so we were delighted when in 20123 a pair of paragan Falcons moved into one of them a
Pair of chicks arrived soon after and fledged that due the nest is easily visible on site so it’s generated a lot of interest from our teams and we regularly get reports on paring good behavior in and around the nest box great please can I invite representatives of the waste treatment
Plant project team to the stage [Applause] and the winner of the 2023 sustainable procurement and construction award is the joint band school project at HMS [Applause] Nelson welcome to Portsmouth the Alford schools of abry music and to this particular jalter block which is a 200y old former prison Detention Center which
Has been refurbished with funding both from the Army and Navy to enable and benefit future generations of military musicians let me show you around the building was originally built as a Detention Center in around 1843 but has been used by the Royal Marines band since 1991 the new Alford schools of military
Music has enabled efficiencies in Royal Marines and army musician training through collocation and sharing of resources and Facilities the project team comprising of both di Navy and the Army have worked together collaboratively to deliver this grade two listed former prison Detention Center to enable it to have fit for purpose and noise compliant
Facilities jalter block during World War II sustained structural damage during construction it became apparent that historical repairs had corroded and we work together as a team with our construction contractors KBS and concept to ensure the repairs aligned with the current design to Pres preserve the Legacy for years to come and to keep
Historic ties it was important that we kept as many of the original features as we possibly could one of these such features was this lovely prison D cell which was stripped back of hundreds of years worth of paint to reveal what we can see now including these lovely door
Locks jalter block is now fully operational up to 100 musicians can use the facility at any one time these musicians May well go on to perform at State ceremonial duties for the king and queen at home and Abroad congratulations again please could our winners come to the [Applause] stage perfect I’m now G to hand over to my co-host Richard for our next Awards thank you Alex uh next up in our series Awards WS is the Heritage award uh this wide ranging category can include archaeology historic landscape
And Heritage building projects and Museum collections as well as Heritage education and public engagement there are always fascinating nominations in this category with such a huge Heritage Rich estate so to the winning projects the second place 2023 Heritage award goes to scampton community and RF wargraves Heritage Center
Scampton church has an indelible link to AR of scampton and is the final resting place for over a 100 servicemen of all Nations and these graves are cared for by the Commonwealth Warg Graves commission the ministry of defense and the people of scampton Village over the last year the ministry of defense and
Civilian Partners have come together to produce a welcoming and accessible environment in which the past can be commemorated and future Generations inspired to remember the sacrifice of those who have gone before this initiative aims to teach young people the meaning of remembrance by telling in the first person the
Personal stories of more than 100 aviators buried at the church many of these individuals fought to defend our skies during the second world war building on the successful installation of two stained glass windows commemorating ARF scampton and 617 Squadron a grant by the Heritage Lottery fund was secured to develop a
Heritage Center at the church an inspiring example of multiple agencies pulling together in a common cause with Partners including Aros scampton the Commonwealth wargraves commission Heritage Lincoln National churches trust and the local community the aim of the project is to not simply commemorate those who died but also to bring their
Stories to life to take remembrance Beyond recognizing the scale of the loss and to tell the individual’s story making it relatable and accessible to all it means that the younger ones I’ve got something to remind them of the significance of scampton De World War II can I invite the uh representatives from the scampton project to the stage to collect the award please [Applause] so let’s find out who has won the Heritage award category the winner of the Heritage award 2023 goes to the conservation of prisoners of War mural artwork at sennybridge Camp
Wales I’m here in the Cook House at Sunny Bridge Camp and this is where we’ve got four rather large and and impressive uh mural paintings that were done by well believed to be a German prisoner of war the four paintings depict landscape scenes we’ve got several which have Alpine scenes and
Then we’ve got the the heidleberg scene with the castle and the bridge in the foreground Sun Bridge Camp it was it dates from 1940 and it was built as a second world war training Cil and it was in 2020 when we noticed that the the condition of the paintings were
Deteriorating so that kickstarted a phased approach to understand why the paintings were in a kind of deteriorating condition and how best we could approach their conservation the work done on this project to stabilize um and restore the paintings was uh done over three phases with phase one being
The preliminary um stabilizing work to protect the murals from the construction work that took place W that work was done we then looked at bringing in the painting conservators to return and to restore the the painting murals various paints were used to restore them from oils to watercolors and there’s a number
Of um um chemical processes used in paint Restorations that that were utilized as part of this process and then we went into phase three which was the interpretation panel so it informs people using the canteen of the history and advertise is really what the murals are all about one of the successes that
Have come out of this project is the collaboration working between landmark’s team and Dio’s team and the flexibility for us to bring in the Specialists um conservators these paintings are a visual trace of the prisoners of War uh time here I personally feel very privilege that I’ve been able to not
Only appreciate the paintings and understand the background to them but also to promote their longevity we’ve got four paintings now which are conserved for future generations to appreciate I’d like to welcome the representatives of the sunbridge project to the stage [Applause] flee e [Applause] and so to the social value award here
The judges were looking at projects focused on any of the social aspects of sustainability such as public access or Community engagement again in another close for contest the judging panel awarded two second places I’m really pleased to announce that the first second place social value award goes to
The Royal nav Royal Navy raw Marines charity Canvas Works up cycling project the RO Navy obviously has tons and tons of life saving equipment uh every ship submarine uh and aircraft is is carrying some variation I reached out to George to find out what we do with
That stuff once it’s reached the end of its shelf life so we took that on looked into it and sure enough it turns out that uh life rafts are promly made of robat products and materials which turns out to be quite difficult to uh recycle in any manner because the the technical
Difficulties and therefore it’s costly the Navy then disposes of most material through the defense uh disposals team items like rubber based uh products like life rafts and so on end up in landfill generally because the cost cost to to resle them so straight away there was an opportunity there to hopefully take that
Material and save not only the uh the land fill but also the cost to assciated with putting it into vanville so then the search was on to find a manufacturer really somebody who could take a raft pull it apart and make it into something practical I think we three and a half
Years into the project we were pretty much at the end of of where we could go with it until we were introduced to awesome chance and the team over there who were charity and gosport who helped disadvantage children who were doing something similar with sales we we got
Some more wrapped and it took off from there really in the meantime George did what he needed to do from a NE point of view and and and obviously the lots of red tank they have to go to manage to get all the right permissions from all the right departments until April last
Year when we were we were able to launch it proved incredibly popular all the items that had been made sold out a week it’s been a great hardship with awesome chance we split all the all the profits that come from this between the two Charities a benefit from a charity point
Of view is he’s brilliant money going to much needed areas there’s the benefits as George has already touched on from the money saved for the crown and the lamill ET I’d like to invite reps from the uh this fantastic project to the stage to collect their award [Applause] please
And I believe examples of the canvas up cycling from this project may be uh may be seen in the space outside of the awards theater after the ceremony today so the other second uh Place social value award uh goes to the Clyde commercial Framework Uh can I invite the representatives from the Clyde commercial framework project to the stage to collect the award please [Applause] congratulations to to both the second place projects H and and so to the winner uh the winner of the sanctuary 2023 social value award is closing the Gap project bab cop support operative
Program Babcock is delivering the next generation of Warships the type 31 general purpose frigs at our historic rise site we’re committed to making a positive Difference by providing high quality jobs within communities that we’re proud to be a part of we’ve created a brand new job developed in
Partnership with trade unions and local Community Partners called the production support operative or PSO for short social value sits at the heart of the PSO program by reducing barriers to employment and providing new skills and progression opportunities whil driving equal opportunities the program is innovative and purposfully bespoke to
Our needs whil enabling social mobility and increasing career opportunities the role has allowed flexibility for both the individuals and The Business whil it’s making a real difference recently we were able to take the capability program further and enable progression from a PSO to trainy World ership supporting the recruitment process a
Two-e pre-employment program was created and funded jointly by five Council and Kingdom Works individuals received personalized support training and guidance upon completion they were guaranteed a space at the assessment center with the chance to become a PSO I have been at PSO for more than a year
Now and I am proud of what I have achieved as part of the induction process F College delivered 3 to five weeks of bespoke capability development for every PSO including General health and safety training and specific skills such as grinding and hot work I joined the scheme to try something new and
Challenge myself to support my family my confidence has grown and I’m looking forward to learning more in progressing with BB it meets the challenge of growing our Workforce and closing skills gaps to deliver for the next generation of Warships the PSO program is now being replicated in other parts of Babcock in
The UK demonstrating a commitment to challenge what’s possible and create a safe and secure world together can I invite the representatives from the Babcock production support oper operative program to the stage to collect the award please and so we move on to the final uh category the individual Achievement
Award this award celebrates individuals who’ve made a sign significant personal contribution to defense sustainability or conservation as a volunteer mod mod employee or indeed a contractor this award is always highly contested and really demonstrates the commitment across defense to sustainability and stewardship it it gives me great personal pleasure to announce that the
Second place Sanctuary 2023 individual achievement award goes to Harvey Mills for his volunteer work in support of operation Nightingale [Applause] I’m Richard osgard I’m the senior archaeologist for the defense infrastructure organization and I head up the operation Nightingale program which uses archaeology to help the recovery of military
Personnel we all see the same things that Harvey sees but his photography just brings it out and Harvey um not only takes the record shots of the standard archaeological things but he brings the human Dynamic to it because he records it as a photojournalist we get all those aspects you quite often
Don’t see on an archaeological dig in the records of the people and that’s what Archaeology is about so Harvey manages to bring out the stories of those people in photographic form and that’s absolutely invaluable for our Publications and also for the individuals that take part they can see
Themselves on the Dig I’ve done many many digs with OP n Andale over the years normally averaging sort of between six and eight projects a year and that’s not just excavations that’s other Heritage projects that op Nightingale have been involved in um so yeah it’s I would say without exaggeration it
Probably takes about a quarter of my working year in terms of op Nightingale that’s how much I dedicate to it because I believe in it that much I think in terms of rewarding aspects of op Nightingale first and foremost it’s the people it’s working with really great experts but working with the military
Veterans as well um they are a great bunch of people uh the stories around the campfire in the evenings are are amazing um and it’s just the fact that they just get on with their work work um with very little experience and and do an incredible job um so I think the
Thing that I really take away from up Nightingale is as well as being able to promote it and enhance the the visual output is to actually make friends and be part of this incredible community over the last 10 years where I’ve met hundreds and hundreds of veterans and I
Can say that I’m friends with with all of them Harvey uh please come and and and and collect your well-deserved [Applause] [Applause] award it also gives me enormous personal pleasure to announce uh the winner of the sanctuary 2023 individual award uh and that goes to uh major Nigel Lewis
For his long-term coordination of the soldier plane owl and Raptor [Applause] group Nigel started at bassing born and then coacher by setting up lots of owl boxes um and then moved down here to be part of the staff in Warminster and at the time uh d Chelm disease was on and
Uh the conservation officer there thought it’d be a good idea to put up some uh cavity nesting boxes which is what the we use um for Al and Raptors basically the aim is to monitor the boxes and by that means we check them early in the season uh depending on the
Species uh see when they lay eggs and then go back and ring the young and measure their weights their wing length and it all helps us monitor the state of the uh Alum w population on the plane Nigel deserves this award because he he’s putting his
Last 40 years into it in such a way that I I’ve never seen anybody committed to some any project the way Nigel has and it’s Relentless it never stops from when I first met him 9 years ago he was he was as committed then as he is now his
Commitment is sometimes testing it’s I don’t know how anybody can be so committed to it and and not not falter one bit cuz sometimes I’ve got up on a Saturday morning and it’s the rain’s been terrible and I’ve been waiting for a phone call off to say well
Canceling it for today it never comes we go out all weathers cuz Nigel is so committed to to getting his schedules in checking the boxes doing the ringing clearing next boxes out preparing next boxes for the season um so his his Relentless enthusiasm can be testing
Sometimes but it it’s it has a knock on effect cuz I love doing it because of Nigel’s enthusiasm it’s rubbed off on me and I think the other team members as well unfortunately can’t be with us today but he’s watching from home uh can I invite dick Clayton from the soul
Playing conservation group to collect the warden on his behalf huge congratulations [Applause] Nigel [Applause] so congratulations to all of the winners and second place category winners um you’ll be able to read all about these projects and many many more in the hot of the press 2023 edition of sanctuary
Magazine uh this will be available for you uh for those of us here today in the in the fo afterwards and for those of you joining online you’ll be able to view an online version of the magazine from 2:30 today if you’d like a physical copy of the magazine uh please email the
Team the address will be popped into the YouTube chat and will be on the screen at the end of the ceremony um as well but don’t just uh don’t rush off just yet to find a pen uh as we have three more Awards to be presented and we’ll
Start with the Innovation award followed by the sustainable business award and the silver trophy all the winners from the previous C Rees are in the mix for these Awards and as I said earlier the results have been kept closely guarded secret until today we’re still looking forward to seeing everyone’s tweets about these
Next award announcements remember you can join in using hash sanctu Awards copying in the X handle Ministry of Defense di at this point I’m going to hand over to Stuart laws to announce the Innovation Award winner Stuart hello everybody I’m St assistant head of the defense Innovation unit part
Of military capability within head office all the longlisted sanctuary Award nominations have been put forward for the Innovation award which is judged by subject matter experts from The Innovation directorate we were looking for a project or individual who we felt exemplified Innovative behaviors for example by Champion adoption of new
Ideas or through innovative ways of working from this highly competitive field of nominations and from the many worthy candidates it gives me great pleasure pleasure to announce that the winner of The Innovation award is scampton community and RAF wargraves Heritage Center we were really impressed by the project it manages to maintain and
Support the historical nature of the site ensuring that a rich history represented is shared widely in such an engaging manner what has been achieved is a class leading venue delivered through collaboration Innovative thought Community spirit and dedication by all involved we’ve together a user experience that maintains the historical
Site building refurbishments within the church and integrated touchscreen technology and AI technology showing Personal Touch that brings to life the history of the service people as Fallen friends rather than the high understanding towards potential audience and the resulting experience brings the stories of those who died to life making the story relatable and
Accessible to all that the Commonwealth wargraves commission are looking at way of expanding the project and making similar hubs Nationwide adds to the achievement of this impressive project please could the whole team come forward and to a stage and collect your [Applause] award so now hand over to Major General [Applause]
Clemens thanks J it’s gives me great pleasure to be invited to announce the winner of the sustainable business award this striking customer made trophy incorporates the three elements of sustainability alongside military activity and is mounted on brick on floorboard Salish from tantal Fort in Coral the fort was built in the 1860s
And is still inod use today representing the long history of sustainability in our buildings and infrastructure the winner of the sustainable business award who get to take the stunning and Hefty trophy um is the Army energy in efficiency incentivization award scheme many congratulations and can I invite whole team down please thank [Applause]
You [Applause] and this brings us to the final Sanctuary award presentation the silver Auto trophy for the best cons conservation group individual or smaller scale conservation effort on the ministry of Defense EST State stunning trophy has been awarded annually since it was inated by the commandant of uturn trading in 199
1991 and this year’s silver utter winner is Major Nigel Lewis many many congratulations Nigel I know you can’t be here today but I also know there are plans for a celebration being arranged for Friday so please enjoy that in the meantime I’m can ask Richard Clayton and the rest of the oil
And Raptor group join us today on stage to collect the trophy and make sure that it gets to Nigel thank you [Applause] so well done Nigel for winning the silver otter and we’re nearly at the end of this year’s event but I have one last important thing to cover the launch of
This year’s Sanctuary magazine and our annual sustainability update this is the 52nd Edition and once again sanctu is demonstrating the great work being done across defense and with our industry Partners from work to drisk the energy transition within the defense operational energy strategy to Industry Partnerships reducing waste the entire
Force continues to embed climate change and sustainability ability into its Core Business this important work includes energy resilience through project Prometheus which has delivered two new solar farms in 2023 ongoing Research into smart micro grids and the launch of the defense Aviation Net Zero strategy this great work is only
Possible because of the people who go above and beyond devoting their time to conservation and sustainability so I’d like to say thank you to our volunteers service personel personnel and civilian staff you can read this year’s copy of sanctuary on the website from 2:30 today and if you’d like to feature your
Sustainability or conservation project in the next magazine please email the team who will be happy to help the address will be on the screen at the end of the ceremony many congratulations again to today’s winners and thank you to re Admiral be for inviting us to Portsmouth Portsmouth for this year’s
Events and to Major General Clemens as well for stepping in to help present the awards and to Min laws as well for taking the time from his very busy schedule to open the ceremony and thanks again to everyone who has joined us online and in person for today’s
Ceremony I hope you’ve enjoyed today as much as I have thank you very [Applause] much there is some light refreshment available in in the fo outside but more importantly There’s an opportunity for you for you to have those conversations uh and understand more about each other’s projects there are some displays
From some of the projects out there and of course the all important San magazine uh please take a copy with you um and uh whenever you’re ready please make your way down to the down to the next level thank you very much [Applause] folks He he he he e he he he he he he he