Green Practices
Introduction
The Alliance’s green practices goal is to lead by example to reduce our facilities’ and our visitors’ ecological footprints. Zoos and aquariums play a unique role in educating the public about the diversity of life on Earth and the increasing need for conservation of the ecosystems and natural processes that all life, including humans, depends on.
As conservation organizations, zoos and aquariums must serve as models of sustainable business operations. Zoos and aquariums can also help the public understand and reduce the impacts of their day-to-day choices on local and global environments.
Tracking and Reducing Our Ecological Footprint
Alliance zoos and aquariums are working collaboratively to inventory, track, and reduce our individual and collective ecological footprint. Alliance members have completed inventories of operational climate change emissions back to 2005. Now we are working on inventories of external emissions from staff and volunteer commuting, visitor travel, and vendor transportation.
Some Alliance members have adopted emissions reduction goals and others are working toward setting goals. Next we will work on tracking and reducing our impacts on water.
Continuous Improvement
Alliance members are diverse and unique—zoos and aquariums, large and small, urban and rural, nonprofit and government. Each zoo or aquarium is staring from a different place, but we are all committed to continuous improvement of our green practices to reduce our impacts on natural systems. By working together, we can share our knowledge, experience, and ideas to assist and mentor each other.
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