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Climate change initiatives

Elysian Retreat management is committed to reducing the impact of its activities, services and products on climate change by reducing the carbon footprint of the island retreats as well as offsetting its annual carbon emissions to be beyond carbon neutral destinations.

ELYSIAN RETREAT OFFSETS 150% OF CARBON EMISSIONS


Elysian Retreat first year results- Total Greenhouse Gas Emissions - offset 49.39 tonnes + 50% =
74.085tonnes of GHG emissions - to become Beyond Carbon Neutral Destination.


October 2020

The team at Elysian have completed their annual audit of greenhouse gas emissions for 2019 through
Carbon Neutral and have offset 150% of their annual emissions for the 2019 calendar year. Elysian Retreat,
Australia's first solar powered island resort, remain fully committed to reducing the impact of its activities,
services and products on the environment as much as possible.

Elysian Retreat switched over to 100% solar power on the 16th of April 2019 two weeks after opening,
becoming the first 100% solar powered island resort on the Great Barrier Reef. They operate a full commercial
kitchen, spa, restaurant, bar and 10 air conditioned guest villas and hot water systems off solar power and
batteries. The switch to solar power saves an estimated 39,420 litres of diesel from being burnt per year plus
the additional fuel it would have used to transport the 39,420 litres of diesel to the island via barge. Considering the burning of fossil fuels is arguably the largest contributor to climate change, we felt that it was one of the biggest impacts we could make in terms of innovation in climate change action. This translates to 112 tonnes of carbon emissions for the fuel alone, excluding the transport of the fuel, which could easily need four 14 tonnes barges per year. The roll on effect of transporting this amount of fuel to an island is incredibly hard to determine, but quite substantial in terms of the logistics.


After calculating the carbon footprint through Carbon Neutral, 150% of the Carbon Emissions are offset for
each calendar year with carbon credits purchased and surrendered through selected Gold Standard projects.
The team have selected to invest in the Yarra Yarra Biodiversity project, Australia's first Gold Standard project
and the largest revegetation project based on carbon capture and biodiversity
*Every project certified by The Gold Standard must monitor, report and verify carbon savings and sustainable
development benefits for local communities. More information here. https://carbonneutral.com.au/australiannative-reforestation-gold-standard/


The Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor – bringing it to life what we are achieving through carbon offset projects.

Sustainability Initiatives

We encourage staff to present our commitment to environmental and social sustainability and our benchmarked/certified status under the Ecotourism Program to our guests, suppliers, contractors, agents and wholesalers via email, website and verbal communications.

The staff and management of Elysian are fully committed to operate as sustainable an operation as possible, saving and improving usage of water, power, fuel and emissions and thus minimising their environmental footprint.

In all ways, Elysian endeavours to maximise the positive social and environmental impacts of it’s operations and to minimise the negative social and environmental impacts. Elysian Retreat strives to promote meaningful responsible travel to a pristine natural area which conserves the environment and it’s resources and improves the welfare of it’s visitors by being in close contact with nature.

Core Purpose

To promote an enriching and enlightening experience of living, working and playing harmoniously with nature, underlining the importance of conserving, protecting and educating, thereby enabling our guests to implement small changes into their daily lives by example.

Reducing the islands’ carbon footprint as much as possible is one of the primary goals we work towards. Reductions that result from transporting as little as possible goods over long distances, reducing transfers to a few scheduled days a week, reducing waste to landfill and turning off all gas outlets unless used is as important as the sourcing of products from local communities. Chemical free organic options result in a more wholesome experience. Keeping guests informed of these initiatives teaches them how to reflect the philosophy into their own lives, and how these intelligent alternatives benefits them individually, and our planet as a whole.

Core Values

We display fairness and integrity, and foster mutual trust and care in our dealings with our employees, our business partners and our guests. We try to deal with others as we would want them to deal with us, and others. We foster the development of all our employees; we respect each other's contribution and importance. We are continuously evolving and striving to better ourselves through a passion for self-improvement and learning. We create a sense of pride and a feeling of "ownership" amongst our hosts and each host strides to own and immediately resolve guest problems. We are in harmony with the environment and our cultural surroundings. We contribute our resources, both financial and human to help better the environment and the community, which we live in. We are creative and innovative. We create a work environment of teamwork and imaginative service so that the needs of our guests and each other are met. We are involved in the planning of the work that affects us. We believe in Intelligent Luxury, Innovative Style, Redefining Experiences and Balancing Senses. We maintain a good standard of personal health as a duty to ourselves so that we may be of service to others, We encourage our family, friends and colleague to do likewise. We aim to minimise the consumption of energy and water, reduce the generation of waste. We source products and services locally where possible We continue to improve the environmental performance of our operation We aim to monitor and assess environmental opportunities, risks and impacts regularly We aim to ensure no long term environmental impacts as a result of our operation

Our Vision

To be trendsetting and innovative and continue to redefine a responsible leisure lifestyle.

Read more about Climate Change in Australia

Calculate your Carbon Footprint on the Carbon Neutral Website