New Zealand’s first Toitū carbonzero certified retirement village

Summerset is New Zealand’s first retirement village to be Toitū carbonzero certified.

To showcase Summerset’s sustainability work over the last few years Toitū Envirocare has created a video case study illustrating how Summerset is working at becoming more sustainable.

The five key areas that we want to reduce our carbon footprint going forward as highlighted in the video are:

• Energy

• Waste

• Travel

• Paper

• Fertilisers

Summerset has offset all unavoidable emissions and has an ongoing plan to reduce carbon emissions, with a goal to reduce operational emissions intensity by 5% by 2022.

Debbie Summers, Contracts and Sustainability Manager at Summerset, says: “The first thing we needed to do was to measure our emissions so we could determine what our impact on the environment was. It’s great that we took the next step to become carbonzero certified and we are proud that we are the first retirement village to do so.

“We are now onto the second phase of our journey looking into sustainability within our new village design and construction practices, which is exciting. It’s great to be on the journey and we look forward to continuing our work in this area – this is only the start.”

Summerset is also a member of the Climate Leaders Coalition and the New Zealand Green Building Council. We have committed leadership and accountability to ensure sustainability is integrated within the business and our dedicated Green Team plays a vital role in helping to implement initiatives and look for tangible ways to reduce our carbon footprint.

Find out more about our commitment and actions towards sustainability here.

Find more information about Toitū here.