PIAF wins AbaF Awards for partnering

PERTH INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL: is thrilled to announce it has won an Australia Business Arts Foundation (AbaF) Awards for partnering.

The 2010 AbaF Partnering Award went to the Perth Festival and engineering and environmental
services firm URS.

Perth Festival General Manager Julian Donaldson said: “This award recognises URS’s contribution to the Perth Festival in developing a sustainability strategy which aims to produce real outcomes that will positively impact on the way the Festival operates.
“The Festival is working towards best practice in sustainability and wants to take its audience with it in realising this ambition.”

The partnership is a sophisticated and mutually beneficial relationship providing tangible and
intangible benefits to both partners.

For the Festival it delivers an investment into its contemporary culture venue Beck’s Music Box,environmental consultancy to develop a sustainability framework and support through strong
advocacy.

For URS it is an opportunity to apply its core environmental services to the arts and cultural sector. As well as offering a unique platform to support a key community activity in the heart of Perth that ultimately fosters stronger relationships with clients and employees.

URS Senior Principal Sustainability Donna Pershke said URS was excited to be recognised in this
award through our work with the Perth International Arts Festival.

“We feel privileged to have been able to support the Festival as we recognise the role that the arts play in improving social sustainability and contributing to the overall quality of life in Perth, as well as the potential for arts to influence more environmentally sustainable behaviours,” she said.

“We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Perth Festival.”

The AbaF WA judges said: “This is an excellent example of a strategic relationship that is thinking outside the box and embracing one of society's broader issues. It resonates with purposeful plans for a better future.”