The images were blazoned on the outside of the Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile and inside, images of Chilean animals symbolising different aspects of the sustainability challenge. But the one that occupied prize of place at the 2014 Awards co-hosted by Recyclápolis and El Mercurio was the last of the four shown here.
Compered by TV news anchor Consuelo Saavedra, the event was held in the University- and attracted a capacity audience. Although I had been forewarned, it was something of a surprise to be held back by Consuelo when I had done my talk, to be handed the 2014 International Award by Environment Minister Pablo Badenier.
The trophy itself is made of recycled metal and weighs a ton, but am deeply moved by the honour.
Also a great honour to follow in the footsteps of last year’s main speaker, Bertrand Piccard, recently in the news because of the pan-America flight of the Solar Impulse. Fascinated that he uses the job title ‘Ambassador of the Future,’ whereas I have periodically toyed with a similar one, with ‘from’ replacing ‘of’.
The evening saw a wonderful series of innovators coming up to receive their prizes, with the national recipients listed here.
As with the event last night, this one was visually captured by Riley Dow, a Canadian. And one of the delightful ploys deployed at the reception afterwards was the use of empty picture frames to encourage people to, literally, put themselves in the picture.
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