SLR wins Best Large Business Award at Sustainable Energy Association of New Zealand Awards

SLR was awarded the Best Large Business Award at the Sustainable Energy Association of New Zealand (SEANZ) Industry Awards that concluded the SEANZ 2023 Conference on 22 September 2023.

The Best Large Business award category recognises business excellence within the renewable energy market, and celebrates businesses that have developed and grown whilst making a positive contribution to society, the industry and all stakeholders. SLR was awarded for our strong contribution to the growth of renewable energy, including solar across Aotearoa, New Zealand, and responding to market demands.

The acquisition of 4Sight Consulting (now part of SLR) has strengthened our expertise in New Zealand to support renewable energy projects with a local team of experts supported by the wider Asia Pacific team and beyond. Our experienced team have supported 12 solar projects that have either already been consented, or are in the process of being consented, and are currently assisting with nine projects in the pre-assessment phase as well as being involved in site assessments, due diligence advice for investment, and specialist assessments such as ESG. Our solar clients have benefited from our property advisory and site acquisition service, project management to obtain resource consents, stakeholder and iwi engagement, and various environmental assessments, including ecology, contaminated land, landscape, acoustics, and glint & glare. Also acknowledged was the work of our Policy team in supporting the New Zealand Government with national direction and developing new national policy frameworks, for example they have assisted the government in its review of the National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation (NPS-REG). The success of our approach is evidenced through the feedback received from our clients, of which one of our long-standing clients said:

“We have really enjoyed working with 4Sight (now part of SLR) due to their professionalism, breadth of expertise across disciplines essential to the positive outcomes for our renewables projects and invaluable local knowledge.”

SEANZ is the leading solar membership organisation in New Zealand, which aims to drive our sustainable energy future focusing on energy distribution, utility scale solar farms and grid scale energy storage. The conference highlighted the need to almost double renewable electricity generation up to 2050 to meet de-carbonisation and growth demand, the collaborative approach needed to overcome the consenting and environmental challenges, and the need to establish viable connections into grids to deliver solar projects on a utility scale.

Further details on our submission can be found on the SEANZ website here: Solar Energy award winners showcase the best of Aotearoa New Zealand’s energy transformation - Sustainable Energy Association of New Zealand (seanz.org.nz)

Image caption: From left to right, Brad Clarke, Mark Ashby and Christina Walker in the New Zealand Property and Planning teams who collected the award on behalf of SLR, next to representatives of SEANZ, Al Yates, CEO at Ecotricity and Brendan Winitana, SEANZ Executive Chair.