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Alcoa and Greening Australia … a partnership making a difference
Although our employees are playing a major role in reducing Alcoa’s greenhouse gas emissions, through their expertise and volunteering - we can’t do it alone.
One of our longest and most successful sustainability partnerships is making a significant difference and paying environmental dividends by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and raising community awareness and involvement in climate change initiatives.
Alcoa’s 26 year collaboration with Greening Australia on conservation and sustainability programs has developed into a holistic partnership involving grassroots community activities to ground breaking environmental conservation.
In 2008 Alcoa and Greening Australia’s alliance on the 'Moolapio' project, focused on conserving, enhancing and restoring the flora and fauna surrounding the Point Henry aluminium smelter in Victoria, won the United Nations Association of Australia World Environment Day award .
Alcoa and Greening Australia won the award for ‘best specific environmental initiative’ which acknowledges action taken at a local level to address global environmental issues.
Moolapio, from the Wathaurong language meaning ‘sandy place of trees’ is initially focused on five-hundred hectares of Alcoa’s land at Point Henry. The project began in 2005 when Alcoa outlined a vision that “The land owned and operated by Alcoa in the Point Henry region is an area of outstanding conservation, education, research and recreational value.”
Alcoa’s $1.5 million partnership with Greening Australia will fund the development and implementation of a management plan for the area.
Greening Australia Victoria CEO Carl Carthy said the outstanding natural features of the Moolapio site at Point Henry, and the long term commitment by Alcoa, was enabling Greening Australia to combine all the necessary ingredients to effect real conservation and landscape change; namely: ecologically rigorous planning, science-based restoration practice and evaluation, and a diverse approach to community engagement.
Our support of Greening Australia includes Alcoa being a founding national partner for the River Recovery program. River Recovery aims to help all Australians be involved in curing one of the most critical environmental issues – the health of Australia’s rivers.
The River Recovery program is complemented by our support also of the Swan Alcoa Landcare Program (SALP) – a partnership with the Swan Catchment Council and the Swan River Trust.
2008 marked the 10th anniversary of SALP – which since it began, has funded more than 600 environmental projects worth $3.2 million and been responsible for more than 200 hectares of weed removal and more than one million trees being planted.
A key element in our involvement in SALP is our annual “Employee Tree Planting Weekend’ which gives our employees and their partners a chance to “get their hands dirty”. We have been supporting this activity for 18 years and for 16 of those years we have planted trees in a planned, strategic manner with SALP recipient, Wooroloo Brook Land Conservation District Committee (WBLCDC).
In the past two years about 84,000 trees have been planted on property owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC); an activity that is part of WBLCDC’s plan to combat salinity and land degradation in current and former agricultural land, while providing habitat for native species.
In 2008 we celebrated our 10th anniversary with WBLCDC and AWC, planting a further 44,000 trees at the Paruna wildlife sanctuary.
It is the grassroots nature of our partnership with Greening Australia and others that is making such a difference.
For example, our employees are also taking measures in their personal lives through the ‘Make an Impact’ program, a greenhouse footprint reduction program. Alcoa employees and their families are learning ways to reduce the amount they contribute to climate change.
All our employees can access the on-line water and energy use calculator and greenhouse reduction tips through the Make an Impact section on our website – they can calculate how much greenhouse gas they are generating and then see the simple measures they can take to ‘make an impact’ and reduce it. You can visit the section and see what actions you can take to make an impact too!
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