Wow - what a weekend

Thanks to everyone for a fantastic Sustainable Living Festival weekend. With over 80 stalls, 8500 visitors, music, delicious cooking demos, kids activities and practical talks and workshops, we well and truly Celebrated Sustainability. Thanks to our Partners, exhibitors, volunteers and artists who helped us bring together such a vibrant weekend. We hope you feel inspired to continue your journey towards sustainable living and reap the beautiful benefits. It's really about living better and with more joy. Get into your garden, reduce your household waste, walk in the bush and give back to the beautiful inhabitants of this world.

All Roads Lead to Environment

Need help learning how to live sustainably and drive change? Our new Events webpage promotes community events that will inspire and show you how. Events currently featured include the Youth Eco Short Films at the State Cinema, a national community recycling breakfast fundraising event to showcase some exciting waste avoidance and reuse examples, and a two week permaculture design course in Penguin by Good Life Permaculture. There is also a panel discussion featuring seven enthusiastic experts who have dedicated their lives to the environment, including Chris Darwin, the great great grandson of Charles Darwin and our own Executive Officer, Todd Houstein.

Heat pumps - 60% subsidy

The No Interest Loan Scheme (NILS) is now offering low income households 60% subsidies for heat pumps including installation costs. Combined with our community bulk purchase, you could get a quality 6kW Fujitsu heat pump for less than $1,000! It's an amazing offer, so spread the word! Our community bulk buy is still great for non card holders.

People’s Climate March Hobart

As world leaders meet in Paris for the United Nations climate summit, we, the people, will gather across Australia and march alongside people in hundreds of major cities around the world. We will show our political leaders our commitment to the better future we know is possible. We will tell them, from here on in, we’re all in. The march starts at Parliament Lawns, Hobart, on Sunday 29th Nov at 1pm. See you there.

Festival winners

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Sustainability Challenge and bought raffle tickets at the Festival. The winner of the Flow Hive was Debbie from Kingston. She was already booked into a bee keeping course and all she needed was the hive! Congratulations to Pennelope from South Arm for the RACT accommodation, Kathy from Bellerive for the Pennicot tour, Neidra from Neika for the Chandlers Gift Voucher and Ruth from New Town for the Hadleys high tea. The winner of the Apricus solar hot water system was Karen Pape and the Carters, pictured above, were the winners of a day's work draught proofing windows from Sealasash, worth $2200. They have since written about the Challenge in a blog and have set up the Zero Waste Tasmania Facebook site.

Living off-grid survey

A short survey has been developed by Associate Professor Heather Lovell, a sociologist at the University of Tasmania, who is leading a study on changes to the electricity sector in Australia, funded by the Australian Research Council. She has found there is very little existing data about who is living off the electricity grid in Tasmania. If you are keen to tell her about your off grid home, or your motivations and experiences, please fill in her survey.