Carbon Neutral Camps: The push for Australian School Camps and Outdoor Education providers to lean into green

The Australian School Camps and Outdoor Education sector has the opportunity of a lifetime, to turn today’s environmental challenges into tomorrow’s opportunities through progressive camp-led carbon neutral initiatives.

Innovative and first mover operators such as the YMCA Victoria Discovery Camps have committed to their journey towards carbon neutrality, but their is enormous room for uptake of this journey across the broader industry.

Many operators such as the Discovery Camps are in a unique position where their sphere of influence can benchmark good practise in sustainable operations, not only in the outdoors industry but also within our future generations - young people who travel to their camps every year.

In particular, YMCA Victoria Discovery Camps are committed to considering mitigation of climate change by reducing consumption of non-renewable energy and minimising waste through sustainable purchasing and implementation of recycling systems as areas identified as having significant risk and impacts to the organisation.

"YMCA Discovery Camps on track to reach 30% reduction by 2025 and become carbon neutral by 2030."

You can read more on their environmental commitment here https://camps.ymca.org.au/environmental-commitment

"Research undertaken by my team shows there is potentially a lead role for YMCA Discovery Camps Victoria and associated governing organisations to play, in mitigating the impacts of climate change in Victoria, whilst also significantly reducing operational expenditure across their six venues.

Through the work that I do, I have been assisting peak bodies, government and key industry players within for the Australian Outdoor Education and Regional Tourism and accommodation sectors since 2014.

Image above: Joel Thompson in Zhengzhou, Mainland China presenting Australia's Outdoor and Edutourism opportunities for investment. Photo from 2019

More Recently, we were asked to present our findings at the Outdoors Victoria Conference in Melbourne in July 2023: Read more here

We were also asked to present at the Australian National Camps Conference in September 2023 in Adelaide: Read more here

"We encourage more small and medium sized business owners to take their first step on a decarbonisation journey."