Our Sustainability Commitment

Ecotourism Australia commits to the principles and practices of sustainability and strives to continuously improve our organisational sustainability performance to achieve positive outcomes for our associated businesses, members, stakeholders, and the community.

We are dedicated to reducing the environmental, socio-economic, and cultural impacts of our operations and strive to create positive change for communities and culture, nature and conservation. Guided by this sustainability policy, we commit to:

Walking the talk – applying the same high standards to our own operations that we expect from our certified operators and destinations.

Making sustainability the default – integrating sustainable principles into all our decision making and activities and ensuring environmental, social, cultural, and economic impacts are considered.

Ongoing improvements and learning – sustainability is an ongoing journey, and we will learn along the way – celebrating our wins, reflecting on things to improve, and reviewing our progress annually.

We hold ourselves accountable by:

• Our entire staff team forms the official Green Team. We meet regularly to drive our environmental goals and identify continuous improvements
• Reduce landfill by reusing, recycling, and composting our waste
• We adopt a “minimal” print policy in the office, and recycle all our ink cartridges through Planet Ark; and use only 100% recycled paper
• Reduce our emissions by switching off computers, lights, and air-conditioning when the office is unattended
• Use electronic (Tapt) business cards whenever possible
• Ensure sustainable purchasing decisions including:

✓ Purchase secondhand office furniture from entities like Circonomy, that sell renewed furniture, tech, apparel, and more at affordable prices.

✓ Any business printing (business cards/flyers/banners) is done through preferred sustainable providers like Sustainable Printing Co and using recycled paper.

✓ Frames and plaques are sourced from family company Upcycle Studio who stock Mulbury products and are made of recycled and repurposed materials.

Our sustainable travel policy includes:

✓ Book direct flights and carbon offset all flights

✓ Wherever possible carpool or public transport is used before driving or flying

✓ Stay in ECO or Sustainable Tourism Certified properties where viable

✓ Choose hybrid or small/medium hire cars where possible

✓ Book direct with the operator where possible

✓ Travel with a reusable water bottle, coffee cup, and shopping bags to reduce the use of single-use products.

Our events incorporate sustainability principles in the planning and execution, these include:

✓ Use of Sustainable and ECO certified operators where possible for conference venue, famil program and delegate accommodation

✓ Plastic free lanyards that can be composted or planted

✓ Vegetarian and low meat alternatives for catering

✓ Source location noted on all menus, with venues requested to source as local as possible

✓ Allocating a tree planting initiative per delegate

✓ No plastic or single use including compostable items anywhere in conference venue and/or accommodation rooms

✓ Digital program and no physical delegate gift bags provided

✓ Notepads/pens only supplied on request

✓ Close caption speakers for delegates to assist with accessibility needs of audience

✓ Ensure diversity in speaker programs

✓ Choose venues close to public transport

EcoBiz 1 Star Partner

Through the Business Chamber of QLD, Ecotourism Australia has been part of the Ecobiz 1-star partner program since 2021. This acknowledges the ongoing commitment to waste reduction across our operations.

Accessible brand and communication channels

We continuously seek to improve, and after receiving feedback from operators about the useability of our branding, we researched ways to enhance our communication channels and user experience.

Here are the improvements:

Updated branding

• A more contrasting colour palette
• More accessible fonts
• More distinguishable logos

Websites design

• Conduct a website accessibility audit and rollout above mentioned improvements to branding across both websites
• Use simplistic language
• Add detailed alt tags and captions to all images
• Ensure new websites meet AA success criteria as part of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) international standard
• Installed Userway accessibility plugin for specific user cases
• Include a specific accessibility content section on the new websites

Social Media

• Use camel case hashtags for better readability
• Use simplistic language
• Include detailed alt tags to all images
• Add closed captions to all video content