Community & Education Initiatives
Community
We support communities through the Wellington Curtain Bank healthy housing advocacy, and bringing together local community gardening. We’re a social enterprise, which means that all our profits are re-invested in programmes that help the community.
Education
We work with schools and community groups to provide practical ways to live and work more sustainably. We provide advice and resources designed to help you wherever you are on your journey.
Passionate about reuse and quality timber, Jo provides framing services with a difference. Read on to learn more about her journey with recycled timber and a recent purchase that will help her achieve her zero waste goals.
Fossil fuels must be phased out now. COP28 was touted as groundbreaking but was dominated by fossil fuel lobbyists and only saw a weak commitment to transition away from fossil fuels.
Rediscovering the joys of biking with a 6-year-old! Hear from another staff member who shares her story of her families’ move away from the private vehicle school run.
Globally, transport is responsible for a big chunk of our overall greenhouse gas emissions and much of this is from the engines of road vehicles. So, what can we do?
We import it, use it, eat it, and release it into the sea. No recycling, no recovery. If a circular economy is the goal, this is a straight line. Read Brayden's blog on the issue of phosphorous which is rarely discussed.
The Curtain Bank could not run without the support, mahi and encouragement of the volunteers who come into the workroom every week. It seems nothing can adequately express just how lucky we are to have such a great team, and that without them, Juliet and Amanda would end up buried beneath a three-ton pile of donated curtains! Or is there?
Our EcoShop may have sold its last shampoo bar, but it leaves a legacy to be celebrated. Here we spotlight some of our favourite suppliers and where you can continue to get their products from awesome spots in Wellington.
We live in a wasteful linear economy where most of the materials we use are used once and then end up in landfill. In NZ, millions of appliances are needlessly being dumped because they can't be repaired. Repair is one way we can make our economy more circular. Find out more about our electrical repair workshops in Pōneke.
Susie, our Community Manager, decided not to purchase any new clothing in 2022 in an attempt to reduce her carbon footprint. Read her blog to find out how she got on.
We are excited to be collaborating with the Wellington Timebank on our Welly Urban Food Org. (UFO) project. Working together, we'll expand our UFO network and help facilitate urban agriculture volunteering around Pōneke.
With Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and Boxing Day on our horizon, we've compiled our top tips for staying conscious, mindful and sustainable while consuming.
Here at the Trust, we need no excuse for a morning tea. With Plastic Free July upon us, we thought we’d take it to the next level.
Working with a thin stretched budget and even less energy? Here are some small but mighty lifestyle changes you can make to reduce your footprint while also saving time and money.
Last month we co-hosted the inaugural Sustainability Expo at Parliament, which showcased the groups doing great things locally, nationally and internationally in the zero waste, low carbon, circular economy space.
Check out what happens at our collaborative, social, and super sustainable repair cafés at Hopper Refill.
We're celebrating National Volunteer Week Te Wiki Tūao ā-Motu 2022! We'll be spotlighting some legendary people and hearing their reasons for volunteering with us.
Meet Hayley, our awesome 2021 student intern. Hayley joined us last year as part of her SDGs masters, where she was studying environmental sustainability and how we can mitigate and adapt to climate change. For Student Volunteer Week 2022, we’re profiling her about her upbringing, study, and journey with the trust.
We don’t like having to supply disposable plastic PPE but we need to do this to keep everyone safe. Read on to find out how we’re reusing and recycling our masks.
Our Sustainable Workplace team has summarised the key points from the latest IPCC report and what it means for urban cities specifically. Find out what key challenges and priorities for government are:
We are committed to keeping our customers informed and up-to-date with developments as they affect our services to you. This is our update at Monday, 24 January.
Christmas is all about fun, food, and bringing people together. None of these things are inherently wasteful and we reckon a little bit of mindfulness goes a long way over the holiday season. Check out our guide on how to have a sustainable Christmas in the workplace.
In the week after Christmas, we send 50,000 extra tonnes of waste to landfills which, if stacked up in a tower, would stretch 105 times higher than the Sky Tower. It’s not a good look for our country and it is avoidable. Check out our Very Merry Gift Guide for neat ideas to take you into a low-waste Christmas season.
There’s no denying that this is the decade of urgency for the climate and our planet. With COP26 running from 31 October to 12 November 2021, there has never been a better time for you to act.
Check out what happened when we joined forces with our friends at Hopper- Refill to deliver our first-ever joint repair cafe.
We believe that Wellington should start working towards a zero-waste vision. This is why we put forward recommendations to Wellington City Council on their strategic waste review and proposed residual disposal treatment options.
Greenwashing is a marketing ploy companies use to make their products sound more environmentally friendly than they are. Their claims are often exaggerated, misleading and not backed up by evidence. Greenwashing is dangerous, sophisticated and far more common than you think. Learn how you can spot it.
We love bringing like-minded people together. For us it is about sharing knowledge, creating connections, and building community. Our Green Team Gatherings are one of the many ways we do this. Check out what we get up to at our Green Team Gatherings.
Did you make a submission to the Climate Change Commission? We did. Keep reading to see what is important to us and what we had to say
There’s no denying that the clean-up of Parliament Grounds following the protest is a huge job, and Sustainability Trust wants to offer a helping hand to clean up in an environmentally-friendly way.