A new video is illustrating how 80 Blue Mountains businesses have reduced their carbon footprint after taking part in a national project.
The Cooperative Research Centre’s Low Carbon Living (CRCLCL) project helped the businesses significantly reduce their carbon footprint and led to a partnership with Eco Tourism Australia.
“Blue Mountains residents and businesses are focused on lowering carbon emissions because the area is experiencing major problems from climate change – more extreme and frequent bushfires are impacting on the region, tourists and residents so we needed to take action,” said CRCLCL project leader and Blue Mountains resident, Associate Professor John Merson.
Low Carbon Living-Australia supported businesses to calculate their emissions online, and lower their carbon footprint by reducing energy, waste and water use, while a local Low Carbon Living -Blue Mountains website allowed residents and visitors to reduce their own carbon footprint by supporting local businesses who are reducing theirs.
Scenic World, Australia’s most visited privately owned tourist attraction has been part of the project since it began. Attracting one million visitors each year, the business has greatly minimised its carbon footprint by installing solar panels and feeding energy back in to the grid through their rides.
“The great thing about the Blue Mountains CRCLCL program is that they really got in and did a deep measure of Scenic World’s carbon footprint which helped us identify and focus our business strategy so that we could work towards really minimising our environmental impact,” said Anthea Hammon, project partner and Scenic World’s Managing Director.
The CRCLCL video is part of a four-part series which reveal how its research projects about ports, tourism, schools and buildings are lowering carbon emissions in all aspects of urban life.
