Natali and Rai Carlassare
Rai Carlassare – a man for all seasons
“We all need to get on the wagon when it comes to being as environmentally conscious as we can.”
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ithout any shadow of a doubt, Rai Carlassare is a man for all seasons when it comes to being aware of preserving our environment for the future. His motives are family-oriented, but the scope of his determination goes much further. “I’ve got three daughters and I want to make sure they have a stable future, economically and environmentally. It’s important,” Rai explains. “They recently found microplastics on top of Mount Everest and our climate is definitely not doing well. You get to a point where you know what goes on is not right. I have three daughters from nine to 20 years old; they don’t have the financial capacity to deal with this just yet but they’re the ones who will suffer the most. We can’t bury our heads in the sand anymore.” Rai owns two companies, Pacific Hire and Active Environmental Services, and he is moving both towards more sustainable business practices. “Active Environmental services performs water treatment on commercial projects,” he said. “Where traditionally people would pump water off their job site down a storm water drain, we now have systems that clean it up to the point where it’s virtually drinking water when it goes down the storm drain. That’s a nice addition that points in the whole environmental direction that we’re trying to achieve.
“Some of our access equipment lines in Pacific Hire are going to full hybrid/electric units. They retain all their traditional capabilities (4WD etc.) but they’re a full hybrid machine where they go literally eight hours on a battery pack. They also have a diesel engine/generator onboard in case the batteries deplete to the point where they need to recharge – but if you plug them in once every couple of days, they don’t ever run the diesel engine. It is a true balance of functionality and environmental consciousness. “We really try to push it where possible, investing a lot of money in Pacific Hire to try to be as environmentally conscious as we can. Not because we’re told to but because we need to. The environmental return on investment is the longer-term future. That’s the best way I can put it.” Rai’s green credentials go further than work. His home is also under scrutiny and he has invested a great deal in a sophisticated solar system with around 11kW of solar panels on the roof and a BYD B-BOX system, a commercial lithium battery system that offers 30kW of battery storage. It is managed through a ‘very intelligent’ Selectronic inverter system that tells the panels how much to charge the batteries at any given time, keeping both the batteries and the whole system in check. The Selectronic inverter is Australian made here in Victoria.
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