Oceana Group


		Sustainability - Environment Electricity Competition

	The Environmental Committees of Oceana Brands are innovative in their approach to environmental issues in the workplace – and in the home. Last year saw the introduction of two original projects.

Electricity saving is a focal point for the Environmental Committees of Oceana Brands. An Electricity Savings competition was launched to create awareness and get the participation of all employees in the various Oceana divisions on this issue. The idea was to get employees to be original and innovative with ideas on what they can do at home or at work to save electricity.

The decision of Oceana Brands’ two committees, Jonguhlaza/Green Watch (Hout Bay site) and Green Stars (St. Helena Bay site) to open the competition to the Group was made since electricity saving is everyone’s responsibility. The objective was to create an awareness of the impact that electricity misuse has on the environment. Our electricity use reflects negatively on our divisions’ Carbon Footprint which makes the importance of saving electricity in the workplace even more important to all employees.

There was quite a good response from divisions with twenty–three individual entries in all. Our panel of judges deliberated long and hard, but at last a decision was reached…

…AND THE WINNERS, WHO EACH WON A WARM LUCKY STAR JACKET, WERE:

Blue Continent products – Lita Jansen
Commercial Cold Storage – Tyrone Augustine
Oceana Brands Marketing – Nazeem Cornelius
Oceana Brands Operations – Mhanti Xolani and Adriana Adonis

The Green Stars decided to do something different for Arbor Day 2008. Instead of planting trees, they planted herbs!

Some of the well known herbs planted were coriander, fennel, basil, thyme and parsley. All these herbs have their own medicinal uses. Also there is nothing better then using fresh herbs in your kitchen. It was intended that the food and medicinal use of each herb would be placed on the containers, in Afrikaans and Xhosa. The containers we used were redundant fish bins.

Acknowledgement with thanks to Titania Stefanus-Zincke and Junita Vermulen for their contributions.