Creating a Sustainable Future

Sustainability lays at the bedrock of our philosophy. Our desire to create and achieve a sustainable future for our business, for our team and for the children in our care influences every decision that we make.

Throughout the design and construction of our Preschool, and across our first year, we have continued to make thoughtful choices for sustained, long-term positive growth and development. Our Preschool is filled with sustainable features, and we hope the decisions that we continue to make will ultimately craft a better future.

Some features may be obvious, but others are creatively hidden, so let’s dive in and explore them!

The Roof: Solar Power + Colorbond

The first thing you will notice, as you approach the Preschool is our grey Colorbond roof and solar panels. Our 13.2KW solar panel system generates clean, renewable energy for use throughout our Preschool. We often generate more energy than we use, allowing us to export our excess energy back to the grid when we do, increasing renewable energy generation within the community.

Colorbond roofing and wall cladding has been a preferred material all throughout the Preschool for its performance and recyclability. Our grey Thermatech Colourbond steel roof contains recycled content and the Colorbond steel is also 100% recyclable. The Thermatech solar reflectance technology is designed to reflect more of the sun’s heat on hot, sunny days, which means less dependence on air-conditioning and reduced heat stress for our roof. These two elements combined not only reduce our electricity costs but also help to reduce carbon emissions, bringing down our dependence on fossil fuels and reducing our carbon footprint. There is also no gas to the property.

Natural and LED Light

To maximise the use of natural sunlight we have utilised beautiful large windows, doors, and skylights in our classrooms to create a bright and airy learning environment. This abundance of natural light has allowed us to significantly decrease our need to use indoor lighting on most days as well as provide significant benefits to the children in our care.

On those gloomier days, LED globes help to light the way, using 75% less electricity and lasting 5-10 times longer compared to halogen globes, reducing replacement costs and the number of light bulbs that end up in landfill.

Natural light is not just beneficial to the environment. Exposure to natural daylight has been shown to increase concentration, short-term memory, and general cognitive performance. Not only that the natural light warms the air, which helps to promote airflow keeping the air in our classrooms fresh.

Rainwater Tanks

Rainwater tanks, storing 90 thousand litres of water, have been creatively hidden in the corner of our playgrounds and under our carpark. These tanks allow us to harvest this precious resource to use in our laundry and Preschool toilets as well as decrease stormwater runoff. Importantly, this water supply also feeds the Preschool Garden irrigation system, ensuring year-round garden health and growth, no matter the season. All the faucets, shower-heads and toilets in our Preschool also use water-saving devices to reduce our overall water consumption and help to keep our reserves at sustainable levels.

Native Plant Selection

A careful selection of native plants can be found scattered throughout the Preschool grounds. Planting local provenance trees, shrubs and plants not only attracts a variety of birds, butterflies, and other wildlife but helps them live and thrive, by providing shelter from predators and supplying food to eat. 

Not only that, to ensure minimal impact on our ecosystem during construction, any tree that was removed, was relocated to other areas of the land. Larger trees that were impossible to move have been replaced with native variations throughout the Preschool site, preserving the biodiversity unique to our area and helping to minimise the impacts of climate change.

Organic Waste Collection

As compost fanatics, we have integrated two composting areas into our Preschool. The Preschool Garden is home to our Tumbleweed Worm Buffets, Australian made from 100% recycled plastic. These are the perfect solution for our service, providing a place for us to compost our organic waste while allowing worms to freely come and go. In 2022, we also repurposed old timber pallets to create a larger open-air compost system for our plant and food waste and for recycling organic materials.

Outdoor play spaces

Opportunities for outdoor (rather than indoor) play have been maximised, with the help of the team at Edible Kids Gardens. We have purposefully dedicated approximately 65% of our grounds to outdoor spaces with a unique ‘Creekscape’ and manual water pump, integrated garden beds, sand pits, grassy areas, climbing poles, a cubbyhouse, a fire pit, a beautiful mulberry tree for climbing and more. The resources inside our Preschool rooms are made from mostly natural materials – wooden elements, loose parts collected from nature, books, ample art supplies, music supplies and drama resources. There’s nothing that requires batteries.

Edible Garden Paradise

Scattered throughout our Preschool grounds you’ll find vegetable and herb gardens, bush tucker plantings and bountiful fruit trees thanks to our Garden Educator Linda from Oz Tukka.

Maintained daily by our Preschool Educators, and the children, they provide the perfect place to connect with and learn from nature.

They also supply delicious produce that we use in our learning program and plant-based meals. Our bush tucker plants specifically help to facilitate a range of garden to kitchen experiences allowing children to learn about their traditional uses by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Community Seed Bank

Opened in 2022, our mini-community seed bank improves access for our local residents to a range of different seeds and plants – conserving agricultural biodiversity, traditional knowledge, and contributing to community-based strategies for adapting to climate change.

We hope this Seed Bank will continue to expand and flourish in the years to come.

Reuse and recycle philosophy

Above all, we follow and integrate a reuse, recycle, repair mentality throughout our learning program. What we can reuse and repurpose, we do. We recycle what can be recycled, and repair items when possible, instead of buying new ones. When we have items that are in good condition, that we no longer need, we resell or gift them to our families and community.

By embedding sustainable and ethical education and practices into our daily routine we build children’s knowledge and environmental awareness naturally, through observation and participation.

Why do we do all of this? We hope to encourage children to become environmental advocates and creative individuals with a strong sense of well-being, capable of exploring their unlimited potential and creating a thriving sustainable future.

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