The Student Association and BCIT created the Annual Earth Apple Award in 1998 to recognize outstanding service to the environment at BCIT. This honour was presented every Earth Day (April 22), to individuals, departments, or service providers who have reduced waste, conserved energy or materials, or increased environmental friendliness at BCIT. The recipients are nominated each year by campus community members, and the winner was chosen by the Environmental Awareness Committee. In 2013, the award became the Employee Excellence Award in Sustainability recognizing an individual or team who has enhanced BCIT’s position as a leader in environmentally sustainable practices during the past year.

Has your department adopted any creative new measures to reduce waste and/or pollution? Know someone who thought of a new way to reduce materials, increase energy efficiency, or solve an environmental problem? This award is for teams or individuals who met one or more of the following criteria during the past year (April through March):

• Enhanced BCIT’s position as a leader in environmentally sustainable practices;
• Served as a role-model and broadly influenced others to adopt green habits;
• Implemented new and effective green solutions at BCIT;
• Created cost-savings for BCIT through resource efficiencies and conservation;
• Contributed to the education and learning of our community in the areas of sustainability and environmental stewardship

Please contact HR for details!

Recent Winners can be found on the Employee Excellence Awards page. Past winners of the Earth Apple Awards include:

• 2006 [PDF] – Mark Angelo, Head of BCIT Fish, Wildlife, and Recreation Program
• 2005 [PDF] – Tony O’Kelly, supporter of the BCIT Vermi-Composting System since 1997
• 2004 – Maureen Connelly, GNWC Green Roof Project researcher and educator on green roof energy conservation and stormwater reduction
• 2003 – No award given
• 2002 – BCIT Nursing Lab Instructors Jane Halward and Sandy DelVecchio waste nothing, saving the planet and thousands of dollars by reusing bottles, dressing trays, needle-less syrings, IV bags in a Nursing conservation tradition. Students use old lab supplies for home practice, and obsolete materials are donated to developing nations.
• 2001 – Lorna Ziegler, BCIT Purchasing Department, 13-year vanpool veteran, and 8-year Jack Bell Foundation BCIT Vanpool leader Lorna cut 7 cars worth of emissions, saved time, got personal use of the van, and saved $3,240 a year!
• 2000 – Len Worley, Automated Business Equipment Technicians Program Student-volunteers refurbished donated computers outside of class for the non-profit “Computers for Kids” and diverted them from landfills. Low-income families, single-parents and youth-at-risk received the computers for school attendance, stability at home, or meeting goals. (Also a Burnaby Board of Trade Community Spirit Award Nominee)
• 1999 – BCIT Fish, Wildlife and Recreation Program’s Burnaby Lake Systems Project (BLSP), initiated in 1993, protects, monitors and enhances the Brunette River Watershed through community projects including planting, inventories, habitat mapping, invasive species control programs, education and awareness programs and events.
• 1998 – Cindy MacIntosh and Facilities Management started then one of Canada’s largest commercial worm composters (~60kg/day), planted almost 80 campus trees and eliminated over 1500 paper phone directories by moving online!

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