PROGRESS: From left, NISBN steering committee member Tim Cotter, UNE Graduate School of Business program director Valerie Dalton, Office of Environment and Heritage senior project officer Richard Birdsey, Tamworth Qantas maintenance operation quality coordinartor Vic Garland and Bindaree Beef engineer Ben Boland at the recent NISBN meeting.
A SHARED commitment to sustain-ability saw businesses from across the northern region come together for a Northern Inland Sustainable Business Network (NISBN) Sustainability Advantage meeting.
NISBN has 86 members with 14 participants in Sustainability Advantage, a state government program through which organisations learn how to improve operations, both environmentally and financially.
Under the program, participants can qualify for bronze, silver, gold or platinum status through sustainability activities, with three bronze members in the region: Armidale City Bowling Club, the Ascent Group and Armidale Dumaresq Council.
The council aims to achieve the first silver in northern NSW and has reportedly achieved a 30 per cent energy reduction since introducing such measures as relocating the server room to the cooler basement level.
Office of Environment and Heritage senior project officer, Richard Birdsey, attended the meeting and said NISBN as a whole was making “tremendous progress”.
“I don’t like to compare regions but in their sustainability efforts, they are standing tall on a state level,” Mr Birdsey said.
“We see best-practice in the northern inland the same as, if not better than we see in the big end of town in Sydney.”
