Green TEA project

At the Lenna dinner the other night I was fortunate enough to find myself seated, at one stage, next to Gerry White, Project Manager of the Green TEA project (and also Channel tourism business owner). I had vaguely heard about this project, but reading about something in The Mercury, and talking to someone about the same subject in-depth, in a friendly environment, are two totally different things.

Gerry explained to me exactly what the project was about, and sent me the following information about it.

"The Huon Valley Kingborough Tourism Association (HVKTA) has secured a Federal Government grant to deliver an environmental sustainability program for the businesses spread throughout the Huon Valley and Kingborough region. That area includes the municipalities of Kingborough and Huon Valley south of Hobart. There are four distinct sub regions of these two municipalities, Bruny Island and the D’Entrecasteaux Channel in Kingborough and the Huon Valley and Far South in the Huon Valley. The area is promoted and known to visitors as the ‘Huon Trail’.

Tourism operators in the Huon Trail region have demonstrated a need and demand for ways to improve environmental practices in their businesses. This project aims to deliver the business skills required for undertaking a Tourism Environmental Audit and increasing business efficiencies, improved entrepreneurship and potentially improved profit levels from better environmental, social and economic practices. That is Responsible Tourism.

Both visitors to the region and operators have become aware of the need to find efficiencies in energy, water and waste to improve the bottom line. The tourism marketplace is increasingly demanding that industry adopt appropriate environmental practices and operators that meet the expectations of the travelling public can expect an increase in demand for their products and services. That is how the Green TEA project began.

What is Green TEA?

With funding through the Federal Government the HVKTA Committee and will oversee a project to assist up to forty (40) operators over a twelve month period to develop the skills to conduct a Tourism Environmental Audit (TEA) and monitor their progress."

The project has already started, with approximately 32 local tourism-related businesses participating. The final report will be made in December 2009 and I will be interested to see the outcomes for participants. Good on you, guys. It’s so enlightening to see that there are people around who not only genuinely care about the environment, and mouth off about it, but who actually do something tangible about it.