NSW Mining HSEC Awards 2026: Winners, Finalists & Categories

Aurelia MetalsWinner

Dustlight – Personal Dust Monitoring

Real-time wearable respirable dust monitors worn in the breathing zone, displaying exposure in mg/m³ through a simple traffic-light system. Workers can adjust controls or don RPE the moment levels rise, shifting dust management from post-shift laboratory review to an active, task-based process. Aurelia reviewed the device data alongside three years of historical hygiene records to build an evidence-based dusty task register.

Hunter Valley Operations

The Salhy Workforce Hydration Monitoring Program

A saliva-based hydration test developed by NSW start-up IhydRATE with Glencore's Health, Safety and Training teams at HVO and Mangoola Coal. Workers place a single-use test on the tongue and scan it with a phone for instant fluid, electrolyte and heat-stress indicators. In the pilot 83% of tests showed workers well hydrated, against roughly 58% dehydration rates reported in broader NSW mining studies.

Quarry Mining & Construction Equipment

Longwall Mantis Sprag

A portable pneumatic temporary roof support developed with Mandalong Mine for longwall cutter drum pick changes. As a higher-order engineering control it removes the need for crews to install manual roof bolts under unsupported roof and face conditions in low-height environments, replacing a hazardous, time-consuming process with a repeatable one that is now standard practice at Mandalong.

Newcastle Coal Infrastructure GroupWinner

The Working in Right Places System

QR code verification built into NCIG's existing permit-to-work and isolation processes, integrated with its TESS safety app and WIP maintenance planning system. Workers scan codes tied to the permit, the isolation plan and the physical equipment, with verification visible in real time to supervisors and Area Controllers. Since site-wide rollout in July 2025 there have been zero incidents involving incorrect isolations or work on the wrong equipment.

GM3Winner

Thermal Drones and Threatened Species Project

Night-time thermal drone surveys across 47 sites covering more than 1,175 hectares of the Illawarra escarpment, delivered with Symbio Wildlife Park, the University of Wollongong, Conservation Partners and government agencies. The project produced the first peer-reviewed, large-scale abundance estimates for koalas and southern greater gliders simultaneously, confirming stable koala populations in areas previously thought locally extinct.

Centennial Coal

Innovative Monitoring to Protect the Blue Mountains Water Skink

More than a decade of Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) monitoring plus genomics at Springvale Mine on the Newnes Plateau, protecting the endangered Blue Mountains Water Skink. The approach separates mining effects from natural variability driven by drought and fire — monitoring at sites such as Paddy's Creek has shown post-fire recovery with no sustained decline attributable to mining.

Glencore Ulan | Peabody Wilpinjong | Yancoal MoolarbenWinner

Doctors 4 Mudgee Region

A six-year, community-led GP attraction program jointly funded by Glencore Coal, Peabody and Yancoal in the Mid-Western LGA. In nine months it attracted five new GPs to a region with a GP-to-resident ratio more than double the national average, reopened Gulgong Medical Centre after twelve months without a doctor, let Mudgee Medical Centre reopen its books, and secured six GP registrars in training.

Idemitsu Boggabri Coal

Glentarkie Home for the Aged

Nine new modern independent living units plus upgrades to existing facilities at the Glentarkie site, fully funded by Boggabri Coal Operations and completed in late 2025. The units were occupied at full capacity on completion, keeping older residents in town and freeing existing homes in a market with severely constrained housing supply.