Greenhills Centre (ACT)

Greenhills Centre Wins Environmental Award

On October 12th, 2011 the Greenhills Centre was recognised for its environmental leadership with the presentation of the inaugural Christian Venues Five Leaf Eco-Award. The centre, which has been involved in the pilot program for the award for the last few months, was happy to have its commitment to caring for creation acknowledged in such a way. 

Greenhills Executive Director Peter Badowski said, “It it really encouraging to receive this award and to know that we have been part of showing the way for other campsites and venues around the country to demonstrate their commitment to the environment as well.”

The Christian Venues Five Leaf Eco-Award is a new program established this year to help Christian Venues care for creation using a set of criteria developed specifically for them. The award is an offshoot of the successful Five Leaf Eco-Awards Church Project, an ecumenical environmental change program targeting religious institutions, a part of the community that has been largely overlooked by the greater environmental movement. The program is attracting national interest with twenty-two awards presented so far in NSW, VIC and the ACT. 

Nestled in the bush beside the Murrumbidgee River off Cotter Road in Canberra, the Greenhills Centre seems like a peaceful and lazy kind of place. Over the last few years though, it has been the site of an amazing program of renewal, capped off this week by their achievement of the award. 

Five Leaf Eco-Awards Founder and Director Jessica Morthorpe said, “I am very happy to present this award to the Greenhills Centre. I know all the hard work they have put in over the years, and I hope this will inspire them to do even more for the environment in the future.“After losing half of their site’s buildings in the January 2003 Canberra bushfires, Greenhills embarked on a painful journey of recovery, determined to make their site even bigger and better than before. In 2011, with new buildings, upgrades to the surviving facilities and landscaping and the establishment of a range of green initiatives, the centre has achieved that. Symbolically, the giant eucalyptus tree that stands next to the Connie Christie Chapel on the site has shed its blackened bark and is starting afresh as it looks over hills that are finally green again. Some things will never be the same again, but new opportunities have also arisen.”

One of the aims of the centre’s greening program was the be able to educate visitors about the local environment and caring for it, leading to a broad range of initiatives that included the installation of a 10.15 kilowatt solar photovoltaic system using a Community Energy Grant from the ACT Government, the establishment of a Resource Room and environmental library, using native plants in landscaping, a workshop for staff on identifying the local bird species and the Christian theological background to creation care and a range of other minor sustainability measures like recycling, a worm farm and installing energy efficient lights.