Environmental Sustainability

We live and work in a beautiful part of the world, and we recognise our profound responsibility to take good care of it – not just for our students today, but for the generations still to come.  

By proactively developing and refining strategies to reduce our waste and water usage, monitor and reduce our energy usage, and enhance our campus biodiversity and advance our environmental literacy, we recognise that as leaders in our local, national and global community, we can be a powerful force in driving change.  

Our commitment is expressed not only in aspiration, but in meaningful action.  

In 2021, our School achieved 100 percent renewable electricity, with 33 percent generated onsite: an important milestone in our journey toward a more sustainable future.  

This was followed in 2023 by the development of a six‑year Sustainability Action Plan, supported by an external greenhouse gas assessment and reviewed by an academic expert from the University of Melbourne.  

Through practical initiatives, proactively demonstrate our ongoing commitment to responsible resource use. Just some of these include:

• Sourcing compostable packaging;

• Trialling soft‑plastic recycling;

• Establishing worm farms and composting systems; and

• Launching Waste‑Free Wednesday in our Junior School.

We also regularly review our procurement processes to ensure we prioritise suppliers who share our commitment to reducing environmental impact, which reinforces our commitment and responsibility to acting ethically and thoughtfully.

Our students are our future, and we know their leadership is central to this work.

Both the Junior School and Senior College have dedicated student sustainability leadership roles, empowering our students to champion their own initiatives and model responsible decision‑making. Their unique voices and actions help embed our sustainable thinking into daily School life.

Our Student Representative Council (SRC) and Environmental Action Group regularly meet to determine new goals and share their ideas for embedding sustainability within the School.

Recently, our Junior School SRC has been focusing on sustainability and recycling initiatives that nurture responsibility and care for the environment.

Working alongside the Environmental Action Group, students help drive the Clean Up CCGS and Clean Up Australia Day campaigns in the School, and introduced worm pods and food-scrap buckets into each classroom in Years 3 – 6.

The SRC also established Banish Boxes to recycle items such as pens and glue sticks into new materials, and their Waste-Free Every Day campaigns encouraged students to think about lunchbox choices.

They support the success of the School’s bush tucker garden and worm farms, undertake waste audits to better understand how students are using our bins and how we can lessen impact with waste, and even collected pre-loved soccer shirts to donate to families in need in both Cambodia and Australia.