13 minute read
FEATURE: SUSTAINABILITY
Go Green
From reducing energy consumption through solar power to implementing biodiversity and water conservation projects, clubs are making conscious decisions that not only contribute to a greener future but also improve their bottom line.
HISTORICALLY, GOLF COURSES have often had a bad reputation among environmentalists for taking up large amounts of space, leading to biodiversity loss, consuming excessive water and exacerbating shortages, and relying on chemicals to keep their greens pristine.
But ask Tim Warren, course superintendent of Adelaide’s Glenelg Golf Club, and he’ll tell you there’s much more to the story.
“How golf clubs are perceived by a non-golfer or non-club person is that we’re just a big, resource-hungry facility with all this nice green grass, using large amounts of water and pesticides. But we’re a lot more than that,” he said.
“It’s the responsibility of golf clubs to communicate that we have the potential to harbour and foster birdlife and aquatic life.”
For the last six years, Warren has worked closely with the club’s former biodiversity manager, Monina Gilbey – who finished up with the club in December – to strengthen that sustainability messaging through a series of initiatives.
For Warren, the main motivation was to embrace the golf course’s unique native vegetation and make it a defining feature.
“From my perspective, purely from a golf course management side of things, I felt that in terms of aesthetics, our course had a disjointed look,” he said.
“We are a semi-parkland golf course with elements of high-quality indigenous vegetation.
The land here is quite riparian in nature, sitting on some of the highest sandhills on the Adelaide Plains. We have unique vegetation classes, and I felt we needed to grow on that and make it a feature of the golf course.”
We want to show that golf courses are not just big playing arenas but serve a purpose in urban environments.
Tim Warren, Glenelg Golf Club course superintendent
That ambition snowballed. The club secured a Green Adelaide Grant as part of a habitat connectivity project with other golf courses –Royal Adelaide, Grange, and Kooyonga – which has seen more than 9,000 indigenous plants planted over the past year.
“The aim is to promote and enhance indigenous planting and other initiatives across the four golf clubs. Monina administered the grant, which covers everything from pest control to planting costs, seed collection, and propagation,” Warren said.
“We want to show that golf courses are not just big playing arenas but serve a purpose in urban environments where we’re almost an ark for native vegetation and are one of the last remaining examples of where native vegetation exists in an urban environment.”
But it’s not just the native vegetation that’s been getting all the attention. Glenelg has also kept a watchful eye on local fauna. Every six months. the club surveys birdlife, monitoring and auditing species and numbers. They also conduct insect and microbat surveys through Green Adelaide.
“It’s a way of measuring and benchmarking what we do, and it makes us accountable. We take up a fair slab of land – we’re about 50 hectares of Novar Gardens -- and we’ve got to be responsible citizens in what we do with it,” Warren said.
Other initiatives the golf club has introduced include onsite beehives, which produce honey sold through the clubhouse, and a managed aquifer system together with Royal Adelaide and Grange.
“During winter, we harvest stormwater from Brenton Hill Creek, which runs parallel to the golf club. We pump it into our series of wetlands, then into the underlying aquifer. In summer, we reverse the process, using that stored stormwater for irrigation instead of relying solely on native groundwater. That scheme has been in place for nearly two decades.”
In addition, the club is currently undergoing a course enhancement project, including replacing its ageing irrigation system. While the club aims to be as sustainable as possible, Warren admitted there is also a financial consideration.
“At the end of the day, there’s a bottom-line element. Take irrigation, for example, we’d try to look at saving 25-30 per cent of our water usage. A typical summer in Adelaide sees us using 200 megalitres, but if we can get that down to 150, that’s a significant saving in electricity and running costs.”
“We’re currently going through a course enhancement project where we’re rebuilding the golf course on top of the biodiversity work. The replacement of the ageing irrigation system is central to our reasoning behind going through that.
“Our goal is to reduce our impact and look at our bottom-line of how we can do things better, efficiently, and sustainably.”
Virtually charged
The bottom line was also partly a motivator for the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) to launch its own sustainability initiative. Since mid-2024, the RACV has been operating Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) at its Torquay and Inverloch resorts.
Designed to capture, store, and release energy while contributing to grid reliability, a VPP is a network of solar batteries connected through software systems to operate as a unified energy source. This technology enables stored energy to be supplied to the grid during peak demand periods. RACV’s own VPP is one of the first to participate in the very-fast Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) market managed by the energy market operator.
“By installing a Virtual Power Plant at our resorts, we have been able to realise a range of commercial benefits such as managing energy costs and generating revenue, at the same time as contributing to grid stability by feeding energy back into the grid during periods of high demand,” RACV energy services general manager Greg Edye said.
Following its own successful trial, the RACV is now offering its VPPs to business customers to what the company believes will help contribute to a cleaner energy future. According to RACV, the initiative, delivered in collaboration with PowerSync Technologies, can aggregate over one megawatt of battery capacity from the Torquay and Inverloch resorts – the storage equivalent of approximately 20 average electric vehicle batteries.
RACV said it can establish the VPP onsite for businesses as long as they are connected to the energy grid.
“RACV is always seeking to innovate and provide our business and our customers with ways to reduce energy costs, improve energy resilience and generate new revenue on its energy assets – we’re pleased to say that the RACV Virtual Power Plant delivers on those objectives,” Edye said.
The company added the RACV is now assessing options to expand the VPP across additional resort properties.
Solar surge
Elsewhere, solar power is becoming an increasingly popular way for clubs to cut costs while helping the environment.
St. Marys Leagues Club in Sydney’s west, Queensland’s Currumbin RSL, and Ainslie Group in Canberra are among many clubs nationwide embracing solar energy.
Sustainability is a core focus of our operations. Expanding our solar capacity helps us lower emissions, reduce costs, and invest in communityfocused initiatives.
Rod Desborough, St Marys Leagues Club CEO
At Currumbin RSL, a 100kW solar panel system with 208 panels has been installed on the club’s roof. Once fully operational, it is expected to generate 150 megawatt hours of clean energy annually, covering 10 per cent of the club’s total energy consumption directly from the sun, and prevent 110 tonnes of carbon emissions every year – equivalent to planting over 1,800 trees.
It’s a similar narrative at St Marys Leagues Club. In January, it launched stage two of its $8 million commitment to sustainability and renewable energy with the installation of 1,220 solar panels on new carpark canopies, delivering an additional 740kW of solar power. The project will also provide 225 shaded undercover car spaces, reducing heat and enhancing comfort for patrons during warmer months.
Combined with the 451kW system from stage one that was completed in February 2024, the club believes this initiative will generate enough solar energy to power the entire club during daylight. It’s reported that during stage one of the solar project has already generated 419 megawatt-hours of renewable energy, reduced 282 metric tonnes of carbon emissions, and helped the club achieve a cost saving of over $100,000 so far.
“Sustainability is a core focus of our operations. Expanding our solar capacity helps us lower emissions, reduce costs, and invest in community-focused initiatives,” said Rod Desborough, CEO of St Marys Leagues Club.
Cruise control
On the topic of power, Mingara Recreation Club has installed five electric vehicle (EV) chargers onsite to drive more visitors and futureproof its venue.
“We can see the immediate benefit for our members and visitors,” operations manager Sarah Ferman said.
Located on the central coast of NSW, Mingara has been a popular stop for locals and holidaymakers visiting nearby tourist hot spots, such as The Entrance and Long Jetty, and the EV charges are now giving people more reasons to make the club a pitstop.
It’s crucial for all community organisations to focus on minimising their environmental footprint and conserving resources for future generations.
Sarah Ferman, Mingara Recreation Club operations manager
“We take pride in being progressive and minimising our environmental footprint,” Ferman said.
“With the increasing popularity of electric vehicles, we wanted to offer EV charging stations as a convenient service for our members and the local community.
“Our unique location between Sydney and Newcastle attracts many travellers who stop by the club, and with the recent addition of a hotel onsite, its essential to provide this facility for our guests at Mingara.”
But it’s not just visitors who have reaped the benefits. The staff at Mingara who own electric cars have also made use of the new charging stations.
“They feel proud to work for a progressive organisation and are thrilled to have this service available,” Ferman explained.
The club secured funding through the NSW government’s Destination Charging Grant, which helped install two dual-port EV chargers. Ferman noted that government support played a crucial role in making the project a reality.
“It’s crucial for all community organisations to focus on minimising their environmental footprint and conserving resources for future generations,” Ferman said.
“It was great to have been able to fund this project through a grant so that we have been able to collaborate on this project with the NSW government and make a positive impact together.”
But Mingara is not alone in this endeavour, with Gosford RSL having also announced EV chargers are now fully operational at its venue.
Located just off the NSW Central Coast Highway in West Gosford, Gosford RSL has installed four new charging stations at the front of its parking lot to provide members and guests an option to charge or recharge during long commutes.
Harvesting change
Culburra Beach Bowling and Recreation Club started with a simple vision: to transform an unused green space in front of the club into something meaningful. The result was the Harvest Garden. Since it was established in 2023, the Harvest Garden has grown to include a greenhouse, chicken pallet, 35 citrus trees, native plants, and edible flowers.
“It’s the first thing you see when you drive into town, so we wanted something that would stand out and break the ‘here’s just another club’ mindset. We wanted to create something that celebrates organic produce,” said CEO Luke Richards, who has a horticultural background.
“It’s really popular,” he added, noting that during school holidays, the club offers pizza-making classes, where kids pick fresh ingredients from the garden to make their own pizzas.
But the garden’s role extends beyond its visual appeal – it supports the club’s kitchen with garnishes, edible flowers, and even ingredients for some dishes.
“It helps feed the kitchen, but it’s not enough to cover everything,” Richards explained, saying that the club’s chefs are often out there picking from the garden.
Fresh produce and preserves made from fruits in the garden are also sold at the club’s reception and bottle shop. The garden even supports the club’s sustainability efforts, with food scraps and grass clippings being composted and used to nourish the garden.
“We already have 430 solar panels on our roof, and this is just another way to reduce our carbon footprint,” Richards said.
Closing the loop on cooking oil
Since 2000, Cookers has been helping hospitality businesses, such as Mittagong RSL, reduce their environmental footprint through a closed-loop system for cooking oil. As a bulk cooking oil supplier, Cookers provides cooking oils to kitchens before collecting used oil for repurposing into biodiesel fuel.
“Not only is oil redirected from drains and waterways, but traditional oil packaging such as tins and boxes are replaced by foodgrade stainless steel storage units supplied free on loan, removing 300 boxes from landfills for every truck of fresh cooking oil supplied by Cookers,” Cookers chief commercial officer Gary Nash said.
Beyond oil recycling, Cookers said has integrated sustainability at every stage of its operations, from fleet optimisation and smart planning of daily truck routes, water recycling, and renewable energy sources including solar and wind power.
“Like many industries, hospitality plays a significant role in energy consumption and food waste, all of which can be reviewed and reduced with changes to their daily operations,” Nash explained.
“We hope to support venues with one piece of the sustainable puzzle by removing their used oil and diverting it to other industries. This can form part of effective waste management and is one-way hospitality can play its part.”
Pouring for a greener future
Lancer Corporation is making strides in its sustainability efforts by ensuring its beverage dispensing solutions support the company’s commitment to safeguarding the planet. It’s Eco-Smart Cooling range of superchillers, for instance, have been designed to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“With a strong passion for ecofriendly practices, Lancer aims to minimise its environmental footprint while fostering innovations that benefit both the earth and its inhabitants. Central to this commitment is a focus on reducing resource consumption and environmental impact,” the company said.
Lancer’s commitment to sustainability has been recognised with a silver medal from EcoVadis, placing it in the top 15 per cent of companies in its sector. It also participates in the Supplier Leadership on Climate Transition (SLoCT) initiative, focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The company also aligns with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to ensure its carbon reduction goals meet global climate standards, including broader objectives of the Paris Agreement.
“By prioritising eco-friendly practices, collaborating with suppliers, setting sciencebased targets, and promoting transparency, Lancer is not only safeguarding the environment but also leading by example in the manufacturing industry,” the company stated.
