Overall Award for Excellence
For overall exceptional contribution to water sustainability.
This award acknowledges the organisation or individual that has made the greatest contribution to sustainability from all of the awards categories.
There is no separate nomination process for this award – all finalists in the savewater! awards® are considered.
Congratulations to our winner, ManheimFowles Pty Ltd
WINNER Overall Award for Excellence – ManheimFowles Pty Ltd
Regarded as Australasia’s leading automotive auctioneer, ManheimFowles has been operating in the automotive industry for nearly 50 years, with sites in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. With facilities in all states of Australia, ManheimFowles provide a vibrant marketplace that brings together buyers and sellers of cars, trucks, machinery, and general plant and equipment.
ManheimFowles is striving to maximise their environmental performance. In 2007, they implemented an Environmental Policy Statement, which covered all sites across Australia and New Zealand. This put in place a commitment by the organisation to reduce their corporate impact on the environment, with a range of strategies introduced to complement and support the water saving and environmental initiatives being introduced at the various sites
Working closely with City West Water, ManheimFowles’ Victorian site in Altona North tailored their business practices to implement a range of water saving initiatives designed to reduce its potable water consumption. These initiatives have seen the site invest heavily in water conservation practices and have resulted in significant water savings. Amazingly, these water savings occurred whilst the number of vehicles coming through the site increased.
In a ground-breaking achievement for the automotive industry, ManheimFowles undertook a complete reconfiguration of its car detailing area. This included the installation of a recycling unit, which has enabled car detailing to occur with recycled water. Perhaps the most acclaimed initiative of this reconfiguration was the introduction of more water efficient trolleys (or gurneys), which has revolutionized the automotive industry and is now being implemented by automotive auctioneers around the world. The process of detailing a vehicle would normally consume between 50 - 70 litres of water, but due to these initiatives ManheimFowles no longer use any potable water for their detailing operations.
As part of ManheimFowles’ commitment to minisiming its impact, they have decreased use of potable water by approximately 75% over a two-year period.
Via initiatives such as the installation of a sophisticated water recycling unit and rainwater tanks with a 455,000 litre water storage capacity, their vehicle detailing area now operates on 100% harvested recycled water.
With similar programs in place or planned for all site around Australia, ManheimFowles is dedicated to saving water across all areas of their operations.