Sustainability
Venues Wellington believes a commitment to being a sustainably responsible business is essential to our goal of making the Wellington region wildly famous
Our vision
WellingtonNZ and Venues Wellington's core operations must be sustainable and resilient to thrive in the long term.
We pledge to focus on four pillars to create holistic sustainability within our organisation. They are our people, culture and values, environment, and business.
What we are doing
Venues Wellington has identified waste as having the largest impact on our environment from hosting events, and our goal is to provide solutions to our clients so they can run zero waste events.
EarthCheck
WellingtonNZ is a part of EarthCheck, the only global benchmarking and certification programme for sustainable travel, tourism and events. The certification provides a framework for our organisation to achieve decided outcomes for sustainable tourism and events.
Our venues have just achieved bronze accreditation and we are working towards achieving silver.
Sustainable Partnerships
We work with local suppliers committed to reducing their environmental impacts in the areas of waste, water and energy.
Their supply chains have responsible social and environmental practices where possible and they are committed to giving back to the community.
- Exhibition Hire Services – Exhibition Hire Services have a great range of reusable products available to support you in minimising event waste.
- SSC Hospitality Experiences – SSC is committed to sourcing the best products such as free-range meats and eggs, sustainable seafoods, compostable packaging and fair-trade products.
- Nosh Catering – NOSH constantly reviews its processes and procedures and looks for ways to improve sustainability measures.
- NW Group – NW Group aims to follow and promote good sustainability practice, to reduce the environmental impacts of all activities and to help clients and partners to do the same.
Waste minimisation
We work closely with Sustainability Trust and Method Bins in Wellington to ensure we're diverting waste from landfill and into recycling or compostable facilities.
Recycling - plastics, cardboard and glass
We only accept plastic grades 1, 2 and 5 as we can guarantee these will be recycled and not sent to landfill. Cardboard and glass from events are collected and recycled.
Organics – Food waste and certified food packing
Capital Compost takes green waste and certified compostable food packaging from our venues and turns it into compost. They have strict requirements around the food packaging products that can be composted. This only includes items made from: unlined paper, cardboard, potato starch, sugarcane, bagasse, pine, thin bamboo materials and cutlery, and vegetable wax coated paper.
Kaicycle composting takes compostable scraps from our venues and recycles them into living compost. Any unopened and uneaten food is sent to a food rescue organisation.
No single use cups
More than 11 tonnes of single use cups from our events were sent to landfill in 2019. We have installed water fountains in our venues, but do not provide single use cups. Visitors to our venues are encouraged to bring their own reusable water bottles.
What we plan to do next
Soon we will be:
- Reviewing and developing venue-specific waste policies to align with Wellington City Council's Waste Bylaw.
- Working alongside Wellington City Council to reduce our carbon footprint in our venues.
- Advocating on the Wellington Wash Facility Advisory Group, with the long-term goal of providing a sustainable cup solution for large venues in Wellington.