Media release
Thursday 5 November
Yarra Valley Estate wins Premier’s Sustainability Award
Yarra Valley Estate, a conference, wedding and accommodation facility in rural Victoria, has won the Small and Medium Enterprises category in this year’s Premier’s Sustainability Awards for the certified programs it runs across energy, waste, water and community development.
Formerly a deer park stripped bare of all its trees and shrubs, the 120 acre Yarra Valley Estate is a conference, wedding and accommodation centre that has been nurtured and rehabilitated into a lush forest with organic vegetable gardens and private wildlife rehabilitation centre, Babbajin Park.
To ensure continual improvement, Yarra Valley Estate has measured its footprint and benchmarked operations locally and globally through EarthCheck, the travel and tourism environmental management and certification program and have seen minimised footprint over time.
Yarra Valley Estate have formalised policies and procedures to offset the business to carbon neutral and also they contribute 11 percent of net revenue to community programs.
Sustainability Victoria CEO, Stan Krpan says the Awards Ceremony is a special night, rewarding and recognising Victorians who have made a difference to the environment by implementing sustainable measures to better manage their waste, water and energy consumption. “Congratulations to all of this year’s finalists and winners. These projects continue to deliver economic, environmental and social benefits, as well as inspire more organisations to think about their own sustainability efforts,” Mr Krpan said.
Yarra Valley Estate would also like to congratulate the community group ‘St Kilda Mums, Geelong Mums and Eureka Mums’ who won the top honour of the night – the Premier’s Recognition Award – for its program recycling, reusing and re-homing of babies and children’s gear, sharing the joy of parenthood and saving the earth’s precious resources.
This is a year of recognition for Yarra Valley Estate who also won the UNAA Sustainability Award for Small-Medium business in June. “The award wins mean so much to me, as a small business we have implemented procedures & policies which ensure a sustainable future for the next generations” said Louise Ward, Owner of Yarra Valley Estate. “Although my husband John & I have the vision, we would not be able to accomplish anything without the commitment of our team who are as committed to sustainability as we are.”