Environmental Goals
We know how lucky we are to be able to ride this epic piece of land and we’ll do our damndest to ensure it’s preserved for generations to come.
We; the staff, ambassadors and shareholders of Bike Glendhu are always educating ourselves and working with our partners, suppliers and you – our guests – to build systems and processes that minimise our carbon footprint, resource use and waste, while reusing and recycling where possible.
We are certainly not perfect! Transparency is key for us here at BG, which is why we’ve been as honest as possible about our progress on the below goals. It is our promise to continue to grow and learn as we work towards these outcomes. We welcome feedback, collaboration and communication in order to continue improving our behaviour and business. So if you have an idea or advice – hit us up!
OBJECTIVE: SOLAR ENERGY
Bike Glendhu embraces an off-the-grid lifestyle, operating primarily on the power of sunbeams to keep things humming. With solar panels installed on the roof of our Base building, we’re able to minimize our ecological footprint and reduce dependence on traditional power grids.
That said, we’re not all the way there yet. We know Mother Nature to be a fickle friend, so on those rare gloomy days, we’ve got our trusty generator on standby, ensuring uninterrupted energy supply to keep the park going. Right now, it’s about finding that sweet spot between self-sufficiency and practicality, while doing our part to protect this place. And that means keeping things as eco-friendly as we can, while keeping the lights on.
Looking toward the future, it is our goal to be entirely solar-powered, rain or shine. As the business grows, we’ll improve our system, adding solar panels and incorporating new technology as it becomes available.
OBJECTIVE: PLANTING PROMISE
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Trees Planted
Among our Environmental Goals at Bike Glendhu is a big promise: to plant a whopping 30,000 New Zealand natives at the park by 2030. These plants will improve the land’s biodiversity, creating a thriving ecosystem that will provide habitat for native species, create shade for our riders and reduce atmospheric carbon to boot!
Want to get in on the Promise? You can add a native plant donation to any purchase made online or in-store at Bike Glendhu. If you’re in our neck of the woods in Spring or Autumn, you can come on out for our Public Planting Days and put a plant in the ground with your own two hands!
If you own a business and are looking for ways to offset your carbon emissions, please get in touch with us to chat annual bulk donations.
OBJECTIVE: SINGLE-USE PLASTICS
We’re on a mission to kick single-use plastics to the curb. We’ve said “Sayonara!” to pesky displosable water bottles, opting instead to sell re-usable bottles (a big ask when we’re asking people to pedal uphill) or guests can bring their own and fill up at water stations across the park.
You won’t find takeaway coffee cups at our on-site cafe either. The team at Velo Cafe and Beer Garden have even gone so far as to restrict snack and food stock to those that come in recyclable or compostable wrappers. In-house cafe food follows the same rules.
But we’re not stopping there. As we move forward, we’ll put pressure on our suppliers to join the plastic-free movement too. From packaging to merchandise, we’re urging them to find sustainable alternatives to help us reduce unnecessary plastic waste at the park.
OBJECTIVE: WASTE MINIMISATION & MANAGEMENT
Bike Glendhu’s Waste Minimisation & Management Plan (WMMP) is based on the principles of “waste hierarchy” where waste is minimised at its original source, enabling us to adopt pratices that divert waste from landfill and maximise recycling, composting and reusing, treating disposal as a final option, rather than the go-to.
Through the plan, we’ve been able to develop infrastructure at the park that supports minimising waste through reduction, recovery, reusing, recycling and composting. We’re also working to develop processes for waste produced by events at the park.
Education is a key component of the plan: when our guests are at the park, they’ll see signage that outlines the plan, how to dispose of materials in the correct coloured bins on-site and what happens to those materials after they’ve been dropped in the bins and picked up by our friends at Wanaka Wastebusters.
Year-over-year, we’ll use the WMMP guidelines to continue reducing cross-contamination in bins on-site and reduce overall waste to landfill.
