Sustainability and Community Engagement
Village Roadshow is committed to a course of action that includes corporate social responsibility and sustainability. The Company aims to ensure that it is operating its businesses within a responsible environmental and social framework whilst continuing to maximise long term shareholder value.
Charitable Donations and Community Engagement
• Overview and data
• London Benchmarking Group
• Case Study – Victorian Bushfire Response
• Other
Environmental Sustainability
• Overview and Environmental Sustainability Policy
• Energy Usage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Water Usage
• Animal Research, Rescue and Conservation
• Other
Charitable Donations and Community Engagement
Overview and data
Village Roadshow businesses have long engaged with the communities in which they operate, supporting a large variety of national and local charities, community groups and causes. For the year ended 30 June 2009, Village Roadshow has undertaken for the first time an independently verified benchmarking process, through the London Benchmarking Group, to consistently map and measure the VRL Group’s charitable and community investments.
Overall $9.3 million has been donated by the VRL Group for community, charitable and conservation causes during the year ended 30 June 2009. Donations took the form of cash, in-kind donations of services and free tickets to Village Roadshow’s theme parks, attractions and cinemas as well as staff volunteer time.
Of this contribution by the VRL Group, the Austereo FM radio division was by far the largest ‘donator’, comprising nearly $7.5 million – this was largely due to the nature of Austereo’s radio business and the long standing policy of providing community service announcements free of charge. It is worth noting that this enormous $7.5 million contribution by Austereo does not include the amount leveraged by Austereo from public pledges of monies to various telethons or charitable causes on air.
Aside from the Austereo contribution, the other VRL Group divisions also contributed to community, charitable and conservation causes during the year ended 30 June 2009, in an amount totalling $1.84 million. The attached information provides details of this amount in a number of ways including an analysis of contributions amongst VRL’s divisions, by Subject Focus and by Form of Giving.
For more details of the VRL Group’s contribution to community, charitable and conservation causes (other than Austereo) for the year ended 30 June 2009 click here
London Benchmarking Group
For more details on LBG click here
Case Study – Victorian Bushfire Response
Village Roadshow’s response to the Victorian bushfire relief efforts in February 2009 was immediate and significant, including $100,000 donated in cash by Village Roadshow Limited to the Salvation Army’s Bushfire Appeal. In addition staff driven assistance led to collections of suits, magazines, donations to the RSPCA, and cash contributions for directly affected Village Roadshow employees in a specially established Fund. Free cinema tickets by Village Cinemas for those affected in bushfire regions also followed with follow up offers as appropriate for those affected areas. Austereo also donated $50,000 in cash to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal of the Red Cross and raised over $2 million in on-air pledges from the listening public in a dedicated telethon that spanned its national radio network and was put together with speed and dedication on the Tuesday after the fires.
Other – Links
For more details of Austereo’s community involvement click here
Environmental Sustainability
Overview and Environmental Sustainability Policy
Village Roadshow is committed to responsible environmental management and the reduction of its environmental footprint. VRL recognises that it is on a journey towards better environmental management of its energy and water usage, waste, supply chain and overall carbon footprint.
Village Roadshow’s Group-wide Environmental Sustainability Policy formalises and defines its environmental commitment.
To view VRL’s Environmental Sustainability Policy click here
Energy Usage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Village Roadshow is committed to better understanding its energy usage and to increasing energy efficiency and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
The VRL Group is making progress on a number of fronts, including energy audits, however by its nature this work is ongoing and presents many challenges and opportunities to the Group. Village Roadshow has conducted an energy audit for one of its large cinemas and has implemented a number of initiatives where appropriate. In addition Village Roadshow is in the final stages of an energy audit of two of its largest Theme Park sites and thereafter will then begin investigating potential initiatives and implementing acceptable recommendations. Further, an energy audit at two of VRL’s Sydney based attractions is about to commence. During the year Sydney Attractions Group has also joined the New South Wales Government’s voluntary program Sustainability Advantage, thus ensuring heightened focus on responsible energy management and carbon emissions.
Independent consultants are assisting the VRL Group to put in place an independently web-hosted system to monitor Group greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage on an ongoing basis. VRL intends to use this tool to assist in ongoing energy management as well as to comply with reporting obligations. VRL will report to the Australian Federal Government under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act (“NGERA”) from the 2009/2010 year onwards.
For more details of the VRL group’s Energy Usage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the year ended 30 June 2009 click here
Water Usage
The VRL Group is committed to better understanding its water usage and to increasing water efficiency, reducing usage of town water supplies and increasing alternative water supply and recycling of water. VRL will strive to ensure that it is using this increasingly scarce resource in a responsible manner.
VRL’s biggest water users are its major Theme Parks, including those on Queensland’s Gold Coast. Water usage has been a big focus for the Queensland theme parks over the last four years even before the Queensland Government’s water efficiency management plans. Through careful monitoring, staff training, identification and implementation of water efficiency opportunities, annual town water usage at the Gold Coast Theme Parks has reduced significantly over a four year period. A lead project at the Wet’n’Wild Water World site on the Gold Coast has been the construction of a 10 mega litre capacity dam for use at the site, greatly alleviating the use of local town water supply.
Water will continue to be a major focus for both Village Roadshow’s existing theme parks as well as at all new developments where pro-active water saving design and the use of the latest technology will ensure that water is utilised in an efficient manner.
VRL’s Sydney Aquarium has recently joined the Every Drop Counts program by Sydney Water and has recently committed to join the New South Wales Government’s voluntary Sustainability Advantage program (through the Department of Environment and Climate Change).
Further initiatives are being considered and accordingly Village Roadshow anticipates positive outcomes with regards to its businesses’ usage of water in due course.
Animal Research, Rescue and Conservation
Like every modern zoo or aquarium, Village Roadshow endeavours to do the best it can in the field of animal conservation and education. Significant contributions to this field include the work of the Sea World Research and Rescue Foundation, the Sydney Aquarium Conservation Foundation, Sydney Wildlife World Conservation Fund and Kelly Tarltons’ Antarctic Adventure and Underwater World in Auckland, New Zealand.
In particular, the Sea World Research and Rescue Foundation Inc (‘SWRRFI’) has made an internationally acknowledged contribution to marine research, having facilitating over 120 independent marine research projects since 1991 contributing to the body of knowledge that assists in understanding and conserving marine life. Sea World has been assisting stranded, sick, injured and orphaned marine animals for over 35 years, with a dedicated marine rescue vessel and staff on call. Sea World itself interacts with approximately one million visitors annually on marine environment education and conservation issues, and operates extensive schools programs, as does Sydney Aquarium and Kelly Tarltons’.
For more details of SWRRFI click here
For more details on Kelly Tarltons’ conservation activities click here
For more details on the conservation work of Sydney Aquarium click here
For more details on the conservation work at Sydney Wildlife World click here
Other
Other sustainability initiatives throughout the past year include the following:
Kelly Tarltons’ Antartic Encounter and Underwater World in Auckland has achieved the highest rating – Enviro Gold – Under Tourism New Zealand’s environmental benchmarking program Qualmark Green. To achieve this rating Kelly Tarltons’ has been required to engage in activities that include:
• Energy efficiency
• Conservation initiatives
• Waste management
• Community activities and
• Water conservation.
For more details of Kelly Tarltons' environmental initiatives visit the website
Earth Hour: Village Roadshow continued its ongoing participation for Earth Hour 2009 across its Australian businesses. Major on air support was provided from Austereo - a proud sponsor since Earth Hour’s inception in Sydney in 2007 – and a significant contribution was made by Roadshow Entertainment in 2009, in developing the Global Business Plan for Earth Hour in conjunction with WWF. It is estimated that 1 billion people cast their vote for a sustainable future by flicking the switch in March 2009.
Office initiatives: these included the introduction of 100% post consumer recycled paper for general office paper and the introduction of regular office Green News E-newsletters from the Office Green Team across Melbourne Corporate and Sydney Roadshow sites.
DVD Production: in this area there was a move to black amoray cases and the trialling other low plastic initiatives. Sleeves, cardboard and point of sale posters are now printed on recycled paper and new packaging was introduced – ‘soft pack’ recycle card with reduced use of plastics.
Waste: Whilst VRL acknowledges that there is much work to be done in the area of waste, some progress has been made. Public Place Recycling (PPR) bins have been installed in the Company’s theme parks in Queensland, with plans in process to roll this out for other sites. The manure from animals used at Australian Outback Spectacular (approximately 26 tonnes per month) is now recycled into organic compost. VRL’s new Melbourne office has banished personal waste bins and has an increased focus on separation and recycling of waste.
Austereo
For more details of Austereo’s climate change mission statement and initiatives click here
