Milton Ulladulla Ex-Servos Staff Kick-Start Environmental Action

The Club recently took it upon itself be more environmentally aware and to leave less of a carbon footprint on its community.

Since making the decision, there has been many environmentally conscious changes made at the Club, including solar panels, food waste recycling, a 'Return and Earn' system, as well as energy and water-saving changes. 

Milton Ulladulla Ex-Servos Club CEO Darryl Bozicevic told ClubLIFE the Club is acutely aware that environment is changing. 

“I think there's community pressure from everywhere that we need to be more sustainable and more environmentally friendly with everything we do in our business,” Darryl said. 

The first change made was to switch to LED lighting to use less energy, leading Darryl to begin looking into solar panels for the roof of the building, starting with a 98-kilowatt system before increasing it to 215 kilowatts. 

“The economic effects of the solar were instantaneous, our electricity bill since we put the 215 kilowatts system has halved,” Darryl said, adding that even with an imminent 40 per cent increase on their electricity bill, they are still going to be saving.

However, the rest of the changes all came from staff through an environmental awareness campaign that was launched by management asking what they could do better as a business and inviting suggestions or recommendations. 

“All of these are staff initiatives, so the fact that management and the board are listening to them and then implementing the staff ideas means that it’s their baby and they are onboard with each initiative,” Darryl said. 

“We were looking at a bunch of changes and the staff just came out with these ideas they're seeing elsewhere and they're hearing about, which are great, easy to implement and don’t cost much.” 

The staff campaign led to food waste being donated to The Little Forest Road — a South Coast based initiative which creates 100 per cent organic compost, soils and seeding mixers — better recycling processes, water efficient glasswashers, toner recycling, uniform recycling, and Return and Earn machines being placed in the carpark. 

As for what we can do better as an industry to become more sustainable, Darryl adds that more visibility into initiatives and environmentally conscious programs at clubs is key. 

“The club industry is community conscious and environmentally conscious, giving people examples might push some of the other businesses along to step up to the mark,” Darryl said. 

The Club is currently looking into environmentally friendly materials for its construction plans and weighing the impact these products will have versus their durability, while looking at more solar panels down the track and improving its food waste opportunities. 

“We will continue to look to look at ways that we can contribute to the community and to the environment,” Darryl said.