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Environmental Sustainability Working Group

When RA Tas developed its 2019-2024 Strategic Plan we committed to upholding certain organisational and personal values.

As a way of achieving those values we needed to establish a means to measure our success against some key priority areas. This included the need to consider the impact of climate change. As we aim to be ethical members of the Tasmanian community, we strive to investigate and develop an environmental sustainability strategy to reduce our footprint.

We formed a working group to discuss and develop a strategy, support its implementation, and to report back the organisation on our achievements against the strategy.

As we aim to be ethical members of the Tasmanian community, we strive to investigate and develop an environmental sustainability strategy to reduce our footprint.

A couple of key goals helped guide our working group:

  1. We would seek to reduce RA Tas’ environmental footprint by:
    • Ensuring our procurement practices reflect our commitment to sustainability.
    • Actively engaging with staff to raise awareness of the positive impact individuals can make.
    • Driving consistency in environment practices across all RA Tas locations.
  2. We would build a reputation amongst our staff, clients, and the Tasmanian community as an organisation committed to ethical environmental practices.

In 2021 we commissioned Sustainable Living Tasmania to provide an energy audit of our Clare Street premises in New Town. The objective was to provide a detailed analysis of energy use and recommendations to reduce energy use and costs.

Using the report provided by Sustainable Living Tasmania as the basis to prioritise work a range of activities have been completed to date:

  • Replacement of fluorescent lighting at Clare St with high efficiency LEDs.
  • Interval meter installations at Clare St to allow for more accurate monitoring of energy consumption.
  • Seeking quotes for the replacement of all panel heaters at Clare St with heat pumps and solar panels to be installed at Clare St.
  • Identified a number of maintenance issues for rectification to improve the thermal performance of the building.