Archive for the ‘Greensense’ Category
In partnership with Greensense, the Department of Sport & Recreation has just launched an industry resource to assist sport and recreation organisations, reduce their environmental impact and improve their sustainability.
The resource has come out of an Environmental Ethics Working Group that has run over the last 2 years with the WA Football Commission, Football West, Triathlon WA, Rowing WA, Surf Life Saving of WA and Royal Life Saving. The group was facilitated by the Department of Sport and Recreation and Greensense was engaged as the technical advisors.
The working group was formed to raise awareness of environmental issues and allowed each participant to share ideas on sustainability initiatives they were implementing, learn from each others experiences and ensure that the sport and recreation industry continues to take a lead role in the community, by providing and promoting environmentally sound practices.
While the resource has been targeted at the sport and recreation industry it clearly provides value to many organisation and we would encourage our clients to take and look and see if it can be used for you own purposes. As well as a general introduction to the issues facing us around climate change, energy, water, waste and biodiversity the resource provides very practical recommendations on what your organisation can do to respond to these challenges with supporting tools, templates and documents to help you get started.
The Environmental Sustainability Pack was launched by the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Terry Waldon MLA, with presentations from yours truly, West Coast Eagle player Sam Butler and a panel of some of the working group members. As part of the presentation the Minister announced funding of $200,000 over 2 years to support sport and recreation organisations progress their sustainability initiatives.
At Greensense we value the opportunity to be involved in sustainability projects that deliver real outcomes as the success of this project has exemplified. If you would like our help in finding innovative ways to improve the sustainability of your organisation then make sure you get in touch.
We recently completed a sustainability assessment for one of our clients — iiNet - who are taking action to monitor and enhance corporate sustainability.
This was the first year that iiNet had reported on corporate sustainability. We really liked what they did with our assessment, and especially the way its been presented online as part of their 2011 Annual Report: www.iinet.net.au/2011annualreport/sustainability-report/.
Go check it out!
We are holding a Sustainability Sundowner at The Vic Hotel in November in conjunction with The Green Network. You can download the Event Flyer (PDF) here.
EVENT DETAILS
Date: 11th November 2011
Time: 5:30–7:30pm
Venue: The Vic Hotel
Greensense is running two sustainability courses in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Management.
The Foundations of Sustainability program is designed to give participants an understanding of sustainability. Participants will be able to identify the conceptual and practical aspects of sustainability and how it affects the environment, society, and the economy. They will also be able to identify how sustainability could be applied to their organisation. The 2-day course is running on two dates this year, July 25–26 and October 13–14, and you can register to attend with AIM.
The Strategic Sustainability for Today’s Oranisations program takes a rigorous approach to the development and implementation of a strategy for sustainability. In this program, participants will be inspired by seeing and hearing leading edge examples of sustainability both commercially and residentially. Participants will also be pushed to fine-tune their own organisation’s strategy through a series of workshop sessions. These workshop sessions will turn the inspiration of sustainability into a practical strategy and business model that can be implemented. This is a three day course that will run September 12–14, and again you can register with AIM.
You can read more about both programs in this brochure: AIM Greensense Sustainability Programs.
The dynamic team here at Greensense continues to grow and I’m very happy to be the latest addition. My name is Jason Menzies and I’m a qualified Environmental Scientist and the new Business Development Manager. With over a decade’s experience working in the environmental arena, I’m ready and raring to help our clients achieve their business and sustainability goals.
Before joining Greensense in April, I spent the last 8.5 years managing the award winning Switch your thinking! Program across 10 WA local governments.
In that time Switch your thinking! has been constantly recognised as one of Australia’s leading behavioural change programs and has led the way in terms of engaging the broader community to affect resource conservation and greenhouse gas reduction, in a bid to combat climate change.
In my previous role working for local government, I was very successful in forming meaningful partnerships with a myriad of different stakeholders including State and Federal government agencies, corporate sponsors, small to medium sized enterprises, schools and community groups, in a bid to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.
The formation of these partnerships enabled the development and implementation of a suite of innovative projects including WA’s first 5-star rated display village (Newhaven Estate 2006), The Green House, the Green Light Schools Fundraiser and Switched on Business & Industry – all of which received critical acclaim at a state and national level.
I’m now available to help you, your organisation and community address and progress energy and water efficiency, waste reduction and greenhouse gas abatement, in a bid to achieve financial and environmental savings and help ‘green your bottom line’.
Come and say hello at our upcoming Greensense Event which will be held on Friday 3 June – I look forward to seeing you there.
We’ve been pleased to get some interest from the media recently following our WAITTA win.
First, Derek was featured in EcoGeneration magazine, Australia’s premier clean energy magazine:
Recently Mr Gerrard was announced as one of West Australia’s top 40 entrepreneurs under 40, while the Greensense-designed sustainability monitory devise, Greensense View, recently won the West Australian Information Technology and Telecommunication Awards.
Where does your interest in clean energy stem from?
Climate change is one of the mega-challenges society faces in the 21st century. We badly need to shift to a clean energy economy to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, and we need to do it soon. I started Greensense because of my interest in sustainability, and clean energy is a huge part of creating a more sustainable future. […]
Next, it was Phil’s turn in the spotlight in an article in the Fremantle Gazzette that highlighted the Greensense View implementation at the City of Cockburn.
The City of Cockburn has recently won a national award for their response to climate change, and we’re very pleased to have been involved. The council has installed Greensense View across a large number of community buildings, and as well as monitoring energy use, we’re also monitoring a large number of roof-top PV systems to create a Virtual Power Station showcasing renewable energy generation in real-time.
This has benefits in reducing the councils dependence on Green Power to achieve its greenhouse gas reduction targets, helping to find cost effective energy efficiency improvements, and turning the councils building’s into teaching tools to educate and engage the community.
Our last recent presence in the news was in last Wednesday’s property section of The West. Amanda Saunders interviewed me and the article mentioned a few of our views about how the property industry should be responding to the sustainability challenge.
Start-up Perth technology company Greensense is calling for the property industry to broaden its sustainability focus […] by engaging occupants and visitors to help slash energy bills, water use, and carbon footprints. […] “the industry needs to see the people occupying the building are part of the solution”. […]
Much of the focus in the property industry and government policy was on large offices […] “Large offices account for only about 13% of the energy saving opportunity. Most of the energy use in the commercial building space is outside of those offices, it’s in public buildings, schools, universities and retail.”
While I was quoted in the article saying there is an opportunity to look beyond Green Star ratings, I want to clarify that we are a member and a strong supporter of the Green Building Council of Australia, and my point was that building performance is about more than clever engineering (Green Star Design), and we need to look at the real performance of buildings and on the effect of occupant behaviour and operational management on that performance. This is something that the new Green Star Performance standard will bring firmly into focus.
This little flurry of media interest isn’t a first for us. In the past we’ve been on Channel 10, The West Online, and CIO Magazine, but I have a feeling we have a big year coming up in the traditional media. But don’t forget that to stay in touch, as well as reading this blog, you can follow us on Twitter @GreensenseView.
With the Federal Government recently announcing its plans to implement a carbon price from July 2012, we have brought together a panel of representatives from organisations who will be impacted, to discuss their thoughts on how the policy will play out, how their business is tackling the risks and opportunities a carbon price presents, and how it may affect your organisation.
The panel includes:
- Tim McAuliffe, General Manager Climate Strategy & Federal Government Relations, Alcoa
- Brenna Pavey, Manager Strategy and Planning, Horizon Power
- Mark Batty, Executive Manager, Environment and Waste, WALGA
This event is being run in partnership with The Green Network and like all our events this is an opportunity to network with like-minded professionals over a great lunch and get informed by industry leaders.
Find out more about the event by downloading the event flyer (PDF) or registering on the Green Network Events page.
I look forward to seeing you there.
This Friday March 11th 2011, the WA Branch of the Facilities Management Association of Australia, will be hosting the WA Facilities Management Expo at the Mercure Hotel.
Greensense will be there, exhibiting our Sustainability Dashboard, Greensense View, which is a great tool for Facilities Managers to understand the resource use within their facilities, to identify opportunities to improve resource efficiency and to drive behavioural change amongst tenants and other facility users.
If you’re going to the Expo, or are going to be nearby, why not pop in and see us. It starts at 2:30pm and more details can be found here.
The Environmental Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ) are running a climate change leadership forum on November 23rd, on tools, techniques and leadership lessons on climate change adaptation and mitigation. Greensense Managing Director, Derek Gerrard, will be presenting on smart technologies and behavioural change, reviewing the Subiaco Oval case study, as well as our carbon emission’s reporting solution for Local Government in partnership with WALGA.
If you haven’t registered and would like to you can find out more information here.
Last week we started using Twitter so now you can follow us here: @GreensenseView. That means there are now three ways to stay in touch. The Greensense blog, the Greensense Newsletter, and now Greenense on Twitter.
One of the things we tweeted about this week was the Perth2011 suppliers lunch (#perth2011 hashtag on Twitter). Derek gave a brief presentation on the approach the event is taking to sustainability (tweet) and, later out on the water, a couple of the French sailors gave us a close-up look at their 49er (tweet). This is going to be an awesome event next year, so even if you aren’t interested in sailing, you should get involved.
And, if you’re on Twitter then follow us, and if you tweet on sustainability, climate change, or energy efficiency then let us know, and we’ll definitely follow you!
On April 22nd, Greensense Managing Director Derek Gerrard is participating in Spin to Cure Diabetes, an event that raises money for type 1 diabetes research. If you would like to support financially you can donate here, or come down to Central Park at 1pm and watch him sweat it out.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that is not caused by diet or lifestyle. Around 140,000 Australian children and adults live with this incurable, chronic disease and five more are diagnosed every day.
An individual with type 1 diabetes needs up to six insulin injections every day, just to stay alive, as well as multiple finger prick blood sugar tests.
While insulin keeps people alive, it is not a cure. Having diabetes can still cause serious health complications such as blindness, heart disease and kidney failure.
So that’s why at Greensense we want to help JDRF fund vital medical research into finding a cure.
On March 22–24, the WA Sustainable Energy Association will be hosting the Energising WA conference and Greensense is proud to be involved on a number of levels. Not only are we a Silver Sponsor of the conference, but we are also contributing by conducting a sustainability audit aimed at measuring the impact of the event to ensure the sustainability of future events — a theme at the core of WASEA’s business.
We’ll also be exhibiting at the conference — at stand number 1 — so why not come and say hello? We’ll be showcasing our dashboard product, Greensense View, which aims to increase awareness of realtime energy use, drive behavioural change and reduce consumption.
But wait, there’s still more! Greensense is also excited to announce that our Local Government Greenhouse Gas Reporting and Abatement Platform is a finalist in the category of Community and Regional Initiative at the Awards for Excellence and Innovation. The winner will be announced on Wednesday March 24, so stay tuned to hear how we fair. This platform was developed in collaboration with the Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA). You can read more about it here.
We’re happy to have our new website design up and running. The old design was fine for when Peter, Derek and I first started the business two years ago. But since then, we’ve tripled in size and can count organisations like Horizon Power, Woodside, Sunset Events, BHP Billiton Iron Ore, a bunch of WA local governments through our climate change consulting preferred supplier agreement with WALGA and great Western Australian events like the Drug Aware Pro among our customers. It was time for a new site.
As well as a changing the design, we’ve changed our site to explain our services in a new way. We’ve divided up what we do into three main areas: Climate Change Consulting, Sustainable Event Management, and Technology for Sustainability. Expect to find more information within these areas over the next couple of months as we provide more details and case studies for our services.
The area that will get the most attention is Technology for Sustainability as we provide more information on a new product we are launching soon. Stay tuned. You’ll already find some information in this area on car pooling with liftshare. Liftshare provide the worlds best car pooling service and we are partnering with them to respond to a request for tender for a major new car pooling service in Australia.
We’d like to thank the clever folk at Cleverstarfish Web Design and Caboodle Copywriting for their help with the new site. If you have any feedback, let me know.
We held our first event for 2010 on Monday. Peter presented on the outcomes from the Copenhagen Conference, which he attended in December.
We got a great turn-out, with about seventy people attending, and we were very pleased with the level of interest and engagement. One of the main resons we decided to organise these events was what we saw as a lack of decent forums for networking and sharing ideas on climate change response. Thanks to all of our clients who came along and all the new people we met at the event.
We’ll be running our next event in May on domestic and international options for forestry offsets. Please e-mail us at info@greensense.com.au if you’d like to recieve an invitation.
