The world-famous Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary was established in 1927 as a haven for sick, injured and orphaned koalas. In those days, their population was under serious threat from the fur trade. Fast forward almost 100 years and there’s a different range of threats, including increased bushfires and loss of habitat due to land clearing. That’s why it’s so important that the world’s first and largest koala sanctuary thrives as a business.

“Our ecoBiz coach has helped set us on the trajectory we want to be on as a business.”

A large part of that success will be due to Lone Pine’s ongoing adoption of sustainable business practices, and ecoBiz is playing an important role in providing professional support to this iconic organisation.

Ayaan Akkalkotkar, Head of the Lone Pine Green Team says, “Our ecoBiz coach has helped set us on the trajectory we want to be on as a business. What we really like about the program is that ecoBiz has helped us with staying accountable.”

The Lone Pine Green Team, made up of staff who volunteer from across the business, have implemented a range of simple but effective sustainability initiatives including:

• Partnering with Containers for Change to recycle glass and plastic bottles.
• Collecting soft plastics with Recycle Smart, a business new to Queensland.
• Recycling bottle caps, bread tags and blister packs.
• Taking their empty ink cartridges to Officeworks for recycling.
• Ensuring as many products as possible in their gift shop are sustainably sourced and use reduced packaging.
• Utilising the dashboard on the ecoBiz platform to help track the Sanctuary’s usage.

“We started ecoBiz because it really seemed like a no-brainer. The fact that it is a free service certainly helped with the decision.”

Lone Pine has been part of the ecoBiz program for more than three years and continues to fine-tune their impressive sustainability credentials, recently achieving 3-star Partner status. Ayaan adds, “We started ecoBiz because it really seemed like a no-brainer. The fact that it’s a free service certainly helped with the decision. We know we need help on our sustainability journey.” That help from ecoBiz has helped Lone Pine make these amazing savings:

• Reduced energy intensity by 31%
• Reduced water consumption by 29%
• Reduced their waste intensity by 16%

As Lone Pine Sanctuary approaches 100 years of protecting our precious native wildlife, the business can look forward to playing an ever bigger role, with much of that due to their sustainability partnership with ecoBiz.