Orana is proud to announce that our pioneering Green Streets initiative has won the Strategic Foresight & Innovation Award at the 2025 National Growth Area Alliance (NGAA) Awards. This national honour recognises Orana’s leadership in sustainability and future focused urban development.

The award celebrates projects that demonstrate exceptional foresight, innovation, and strategic planning in responding to the challenges of rapid growth. Green Streets at Orana stood out for its visionary approach to embedding sustainable infrastructure, enhancing biodiversity, and improving community wellbeing within everyday streetscapes.

The Green Streets concept began with a simple challenge: How can we maximise tree canopy cover in our most common streets, where hard infrastructure typically dominates? Balcon engaged our engineering partners, Verve Projects, to lead a collaborative design team including the City of Casey, Patch Design & Plan, and MDG Landscape Architects. Together, the team developed a street design that establishes a dedicated tree growth zone, reuses site-won topsoils and maximises permeability—all without requiring changes to existing road design standards.

Through the implementation of this strategy, Orana is able to drive the circular economy. It is estimated that 1,000 metric tonnes of CO₂ emissions are avoided by eliminating concrete footpaths, and 5,000 metric tonnes of CO₂ emissions are avoided through use of recycled asphalt and crushed concrete in road construction. This model is now influencing street designs across other growth areas.

Winning the Strategic Foresight & Innovation Award places Orana at the forefront of sustainable urbanism nationwide and highlights the meaningful impact of collaborative, future-ready design.

About the National Growth Area Alliance (NGAA)

The NGAA is the national voice for Australia’s fastest-growing municipalities, advocating for investment, policy, and service delivery to ensure these communities thrive. The annual NGAA Awards recognise excellence and best practice across Australia’s growth corridors.