Clean-up scientist wins Banksia Award

Professor Ravi Naidu - the CEO and managing director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE) - has won this year’s Richard Pratt Banksia CEO Award. The award recognises an individual executive’s contribution towards the economic, social or environmental sustainability achievements of the organisation or company they work for and which also benefits the world.

Professor Naidu has been eminent in the field of environmental contaminant research, toxicology, bioavailability and remediation for over 30 years. He is the inaugural director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR), which he established in 2002; has authored or co-authored over 500 technical publications and co-edited 10 books in the field of soil and environmental sciences; has supervised more than 20 PhD students; and has collaborated with clean-up scientists from USA, Europe, UK, New Zealand and various Asian countries.

Professor Naidu’s research focuses on the remediation of contaminated soil, water and air, and the potential impacts of contaminants on environmental and human health at local, national and global levels. In particular, he develops innovative technologies for contaminant assessment, speciation and bioavailability in soil and groundwater, and remediation technologies and strategies to minimise further contamination of the environment.

He has helped to revolutionise contamination science through a risk-based approach to managing contaminated sites, demonstrating that contaminants only pose a risk if they can be taken up by humans, animals, plants and other biota with adverse effects. He has also pioneered the shift to in situ remediation - cleaning up contamination where it lies, rather than the traditional ‘dig and dump’ approach that has led to an unsustainable growth in landfills in Australia and worldwide. His approaches potentially save industry millions of dollars annually and make clean-up far more feasible.

Professor Naidu recently launched the Global Contamination Initiative (GCI), which aims to define, quantify, set limits to, help clean up and devise new ways to curb the growing chemical assault on human health and the biosphere. The initiative will seek not only to define the extent of the issue, but also to develop cost-effective, workable solutions that can be readily adopted by industry, governments and the community. It is set to become an international alliance of leading scientific, government, industry and community organisations and individuals.

For the full list of Banksia Award winners and finalists, click here.