Dated: July 2024

WHAT DOES “SUSTAINABILITY” MEAN TO US, AND WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT?

“Sustainability” is a term that can be loosely used, yet poorly defined.

This is what our environmental sustainability transition, current actions and future action plan looks like:

GREENHOUSE GAS ASSESSMENT AND CARBON NEUTRALITY

No Pong Natural Products Pty Ltd, at an organisation level is a carbon neutral company for FY23, and we are working toward Climate Active Certification for FY24.

Greenhouse Gas Assessment:
Early 2024 we opened our own warehouse and as part of that process wanted to ensure that all of our operations were carbon neutral. We’re pleased to confirm that we’ve now gone further than that. 

We always take the view that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t do anything about it”. 

So, with the first step being measurement, we have recently finalised an independent Greenhouse Gas Assessment (GHGA) for the financial year July 2022- June 2023, going back over 18 months before we opened our warehouse.

This assessment was conducted by independent consultants that adhere to Australian and International standards and protocols:

  • The Australian National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme (NGERS) legislation
  • World Business Council for Sustainable Development and World Resources Institute’s GHG Protocol
  • The National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS) Climate Active
  • ISO 14064-3: Greenhouse Gases – Specification with guidance for the validation and verification of
  • greenhouse gas assertions
  • AS/NZS ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management Systems
  • Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines

Results FY23:

Benchmarking FY23:

The results showed we were below some of the greenhouse gas emissions of businesses in similar industries. 

Actions FY23:
We rounded up the 505.79 tonnes to 550 tonnes to cover any additional heavy breathing or accidental “rear end emissions” (we haven’t created a No Pong for that yet!)

We have offset 550 tonnes of carbon across two carbon offset projects both certified by the Australian Government’s Climate Active program.

One of these projects focuses on ecosystem conservation, education, healthcare and clean water in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  This project ticks a lot of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that we feel are important for our planet.

The other project is a renewable Wind Power project in the Tamil Nadu state of India which complements the SGD goals above.  Renewable energy and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels is something we strongly believe in, and we need more solutions for worldwide.

As an organisation who’s Directors have spent nearly a decade living and working in developing countries, all the while running No Pong, these projects are something we believe are making a difference.

What does FY24 (July 2023 – June 2024) look like?
The FY24 financial year has just ended and we’re now working with our consultants on the GHGA for the year just gone.

For this year, we aim to achieve Climate Active Certification, and as we collect more data we’ll be able to build out our emissions reduction strategy based on meaningful and measurable data.

Watch this space.  We will report back as soon as our GHGA is done!

WHAT ELSE ARE WE DOING?

Recycling in Timor Leste:

Timor Leste is one of Australia’s nearest neighbours, only 50min flight from Darwin, and we directly share an ocean. 

In our many trips there we’ve seen firsthand the heartbreaking, and immense reality of plastic pollution.  We’ve paddled through every type of plastic waste including used nappies.

Seeing a problem, we knew we could make an impact on, No Pong directly and wholly funds a recycling pickup and education program in Timor Leste, in collaboration with a Timor based engineering company that is recycling plastic waste into a variety of new building products. 

We aim to provide:
1) An important recycling pickup service, the type we don’t even think about in Australia as it “just happens”,

2) To provide education as to the importance of recycling and not throwing rubbish on the ground, ocean, or simply burning it.  We want to leave our staff and community in a better place than we found them. 

3) Create jobs for unemployed youth in a country where youth unemployment is off the charts.   We’re also providing free English lessons for the community.

So far, we’ve invested over $100,000+ USD  in staffing, logistics and ongoing operations. 

In our first year to May 2023 we had already kept just over;

  • 6,300kg of plastic,
  • 1,700kg of metal,
  • 2,900kg of glass,  
  • 8,300kg of cardboard,
  • Total: 19,300kg out of landfill since the programme kicked off.


In our next year to May 2024 we kept over;

  • 9,700kg of plastic,
  • 1,700kg of metal,
  • 3,700kg of glass,  
  • 13,100kg of cardboard,
  • Total: 28,300kg out of landfill in our next year.

TOTAL: 47,700kg saved from a landfill that smoulders 24/7 and looks like a scene from Apocalypse Now.

The plastic and glass being recycled are being turned into building materials by a very impressive Timor based engineering company, who have a “recipe” to recycle materials including soft plastics, bottles containing both PET & HDPE, plus plastic lined tetra paks, and glass ground back into essentially sand, into practical and usable products like building material sheets.