DELTA ENVIRONMENTAL CENTRE (DEC) is proud to announce that two awards in the past two months have been made to the organisation. 

On 9 June 2006, the Mail and Guardian’s “Greening the Future” programme, awarded a Merit Award for environmental best practice to DEC in the “Non-Profit Organisation” category. In the supplement published on the day of the award ceremony, an article titled “Leading by Example”  on DEC was featured: 

The Greening the Future judges praised Delta’s solid record, its phenomenal reach among schools, and its efforts to save water and energy - addressing environmental management issues both within its own operations and by extension through learners.  

In 2005, the centre put its own environmental practices under the spotlight. Di Beeton, the centre’s executive officer, explained that we’ve been encouraging schools and teachers to develop environmental policies and we felt it was a little unfair not to have those policies ourselves.  

Staff members formed committees to develop policies on resource management for the centre. “We developed policies for the centre around our water, waste management and energy use,” said Beeton. “These procedures were put in place in a collaborative, participatory way.” The policies lay down short term, medium and long term goals for implementation as well as a task list.  

On 18 July 2006, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) South Africa awarded DEC with a commendation plaque for “its ability as an NGO to demonstrate, through its reporting mechanisms , a sense of accountability to the community”. This award was based on DEC’s 2005 Annual Report . Di Beeton, DEC’s Executive Officer said “It is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain non profit organisation and a number of funders now ask the question whether the operation is sustainable. One has to diversify and seek meaningful partnerships. One has to look at all of one’s activities, really scrutinise them and offer things that are totally relevant and focus on one’s business. I used the global reporting initiative framework as an outline. It helped us organise our thoughts in terms of what we were doing in those areas.”   

The recognition and external evaluation / assessment involved in these two processes, indicates that the work being done by DEC in the field of environmental education and training is making a significant contribution in this vital sector. 

The Board of Directors and staff of DEC would like to express their appreciation for all the support being received from many quarters that enables the organisation to remain at the cutting edge of development within environmental education and training. 

Photographs are available on request.

Issued by:                Di Beeton

                                Delta Environmental Centre

                                Tele:                011 – 888 4831                               Cell: 082 900 1775