ISF's Banksia win

The UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) and partners the NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN) have been awarded a National Banksia Award for OPENAIR, a project which empowers local councils to combat air pollution through Australia’s first common method for using low-cost smart sensors to measure air quality.   

OPENAIR took out the Healthy Planet, Healthy People Award for significant contributions to supporting the health of the planet to improve human health and wellbeing.  

The award was presented to ISF Research Director Kerryn Wilmot and NSSN’s Natural Hazards & Smart Cities Theme Leader Peter Runcie at a gala event in Melbourne on 4 April.   

Widespread recognition from this Banksia Award will help to promote this world-leading body of resources across the country, as the go-to best practice reference.

– Andrew Tovey, ISF

ISF Research Principal Andrew Tovey, who was a key member of the OPENAIR team, says:  

“OPENAIR is a game-changer for smart air quality monitoring and will support place-owners to take tangible positive action on local air quality issues.  

Widespread recognition from this Banksia Award will help to promote this world-leading body of resources across the country, as the go-to best practice reference.

The project has also demonstrated a unique blueprint for collaborative development of best practice smart technology application that can now be employed in other sectors, and may come to be recognised as a significant milestone in Australia's IoT maturity journey." 

ISF was also a finalist in this year’s Climate Technology Impact Award category for the SIMPaCT: Smart Irrigation Management for Parks and Cool Towns project, and Climate-KIC was a finalist in the Net Zero Action Award category for the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative, delivered in partnership with Climateworks Centre with support from the Energy Transitions Commission. 

Read more about our winning projects and the other 35th National Banksia Awards winners here.