Ginninderry has always done things a little differently—and with the help of the ACT Business Recycling Program, they’re leading by example to trailblaze a future that promises a positive impact on both the environment and the local community.

For 10 years, Riverview Projects (the Development Manager for Ginninderry) has made a conscious effort to recognise internal waste streams and find creative ways to reduce them. The ACT Government’s Business Recycling Program is one of the tools in the organisation’s sustainability toolkit.

Aimed at helping businesses with recycling and avoiding food waste, the program helps organisations reduce their impact on the environment and meet corporate environmental commitments.

Jessica Stewart, Sustainability Manager at Ginninderry, offers a way to keep the staff at Riverview Projects accountable and motivated – providing the business with important information on what they achieved that year, as well as areas for improvement.

“We want to try and highlight that it’s not just about us building sustainable communities and developments externally but thinking about how we run as a business to try and reduce waste.”

“The ACT Business Recycling Program has been a great auditing and assessment tool for us to make sure that we’re doing the right thing every year,” says Jessica.

It’s through this approach to recycling that office waste is finding a second life at the hands of Riverview. And much like their local café partnership, this journey ‘after use’ often finds its way back to the community.

“All of the bottles that we collectively create profits that then go into the Ginninderry choir—all the new roads in Ginninderry have been made from Reconophalt that uses the soft plastic to make asphalt. So being able to have and see an end product made out of plastics is cool for a community and industry to start understanding how we might be able to help with some of the challenges of there being so many soft plastics,” explains Jessica.

While Ginninderry is clearly at the forefront of creative recycling solutions inside and outside of the office, Jessica acknowledges that tackling waste is a long and ever-evolving journey –something their team is continuously trying to improve.

“One of the things that we could do better as a business is to reduce the amount of paper that we use, so there are some companies now that are going to paperless offices. That’s probably where we should be going next – reducing the amount of paper we use even if it is going to recycling – I think that’s going to be a big one for our office personally,” she reflects.

To learn more about other sustainability projects in Ginninderry, head over and read Our Vision.