Sustainability
Touching the earth lightly
Sustainability is at the core of what we do, and was a significant part of the birth of Compass Hut. Tamika and I, with our passions for architecture, design and sustainability, saw Compass Hut as the opportunity to explore our ideas in a transportable, built form. We endeavoured to design and craft 'hut' experiences that could be a vehicle to help educate and advocate for solar passive design, hybrid, off-grid power, sustainability, and what has grown into so much more along the journey; like a 'compass'. This includes our intrigue, passion and work in the agritourism space (the little homes share a place on the family's organic farm), eco/positive impact tourism and wellness. We continue to evolve, learn and innovate, with the following mission statement:
Taking up the challenge to be as eco and sustainable as possible and sharing it with the world.
WHY TINY HOMES?
Compass Hut was born from concepts around self-sufficiency, sustainability, architectural passive design and protecting the environment. Located on an organic farm in Tasmania’s north-west, our first Compass Hut has been ensconced in the rich, northern farmland coast of the island.
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The design of the Tiny House draws from architectural inspirations from Scandinavia and philosophical ideas in architecture known as phenomenology (architecture that engagements the five human senses). The Tiny House also focuses on self-sufficiency and solar passive design.
Compass Hut is about promoting wellness, a place for disconnecting and taking inspiration from the hut and environs. During your stay, we encourage you to participate in the natural landscape in which the hut sits. We invite our guests to pick the herbs, fruit and vegetables from the garden during their visit.
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Our aim is to create a space and place that influences calm, meditation, peace, simplicity and escape. We want our guests to feel it is their deep personal journey, a space of retreat and wellness during their visit, and a feeling of empowered. We want our travellers' journey to be enriched by their stay and for it to become a unique part of their Tasmanian experience.
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OFF-GRID
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Our Tiny House harvests its own power via its hybrid off-grid solar and battery storage system, collects its own water and recycles all waste in an environmentally and sustainable manner.
LOW ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
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Our Tiny House has minimal impact on its environment as a fully licensed Tiny House (on wheels), positioned on a fully certified organic farm in Tasmania's North Coast region.
ECOSTAR ACCREDITED
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Our commitment to reducing disturbance and impact on the environment, conservation and sustainability practises and our support to our community, natural and indigenous heritage of our region.
Energy-efficiency
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The Hut has been fully insulated to suit the local Tasmanian climate, and all windows are double-glazed. The Hut sits facing direct North, for optimum solar passive design.
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Freshwater collection
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Rain is collected by the roof and transferred into a nearby rain water tank. This is then used by the Hut as the freshwater supply.
Compost toilet
The Hut uses a waterless split-system compost toilet that is collected in a drum underneath the floor. The waste is then separated and heated 24/7; helping to break down the waste until it is disposed of every six months.
Off-grid solar system
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The Hut collects and stores electricity from the sun.
GIVING BACK
TASMANIAN ARBORETUM
Each year in Tasmania, the tourism industry comes together to participate in the Off Season (May - August). Businesses are invited to get creative and offer Tasmanian visitors a special 'winter experience'.
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For 2024, at Compass Hut, we were keen to Give Back to our community and support a non-for-profit, volunteer organisation in our region.
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This year we have partnered with the Tasmanian Arboretum. Located 5 minutes drive from Compass Hut, the arboretum is home to a family of platypus, wildlife, birdlife across 66 ha's of botanical gardens; open to the public thanks for the volunteers who make this a must-see attraction in our region.
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$2 from every booking made at Compass Hut will be donated to the Tasmanian Arboretum during the 2024 Off Season period.
STRIVE 4 SUSTAINABILITY SCORECARD
ECOTOURISM AUSTRALIA & TOURISM AUSTRALIA
We are thrilled to have the opportunity to undergo and complete the Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard program. A program by Ecotourism Australia, in partnership with Tourism Australia, provides tourism businesses a pathway to measuring businesses sustainability practices at that time.
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Learn more here.
MEASURING OUR CARBON EMISSIONS
SUMDAY & ER ADVISORY
Being able to measure our carbon footprint, as a small tourism operator, is really important to us. We feel this is the first step in understanding our footprint, which can then help inform us around what further initiatives can we explore to reduce this.
To calculate our carbon footprint, we worked with Tasmanian-based accounting firm ER Advisory, using Sumday's carbon accounting software to measure our Scope 1, 2 & Scope 3 emissions.
AN EXAMPLE OF OUR WORK WITH SUMDAY & ER ADVISORY
What we found, undergoing the first year of assessment, was that our estimated Scope 1 emissions was 3 tonnes across the 2021 calendar year, and our Scope 2 emissions came in at 0. However, Sumday found that our Scope 3 bumped us up to 28 tonnes tonnes overall (1,2 & 3) for 2021; which takes into account the emissions from our suppliers outside of the business. When we dive deeper, however, a considerable percentage of the Scope 3 emissions came from Arc Pavilion during that year, due to the project still undergoing construction (i.e. Arc Pavilion at 11.44 (t) of C02-e, in comparison to Barnhaus (not under construction) at 3.32 (t) of C02-e for 2021).
By undergoing our first year of assessment, this has provided us with a foundation to understand what our carbon footprint was in the first year of assessment, then compare to subsequent years (more info coming soon), to then identify how we can work to reduce our carbon footprint now and into the future. Compass Hut will be undergoing continued annual assessment, with more on this coming soon.
SUPPORTING SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES
Participant in Sustainable House Day
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Compass Hut is a proud participate, alongside homes across the country, opening it's doors to the Australian community for Sustainable House Day.
Hosted by Renew, SHD helps to inspire Australia's to join us in making our built and living environments more sustainable, inspire and share knowledge with each other to help build a brighter and more sustainable future.
Sustainable House Day is hosted and facilitated by Renew Australia, a national non-for-profit organisation advocating for sustainability in the built environment and beyond.
Find out more here.
ERC AUSTRALIA
OUR EMISSIONS REDUCTION PLAN
In late 2023 we had the opportunity to continue our carbon reduction journey through ERC Australia, based in right here in Tasmania. ERC Australia helps small to medium size businesses calculate their emissions, then create an Emission Reduction Plan with actions to reduce emissions across time.
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View our Emission Reduce Plan
by scanning the QR code below, or clicking here:
SPONSORSHIP
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THE NEW LEAF CARBON PROJECT
TASMANIAN LAND CONSERVANCY
As part of the ERC Australia program above, we have selected and sponsored/commenced off-setting through CCU's (Carbon Credit Units) through the Tasmanian Land Conservancy's 'The New Leaf Carbon Project'. The aim of the program to is help remove carbon emissions, conserve landscapes sustainability, their ecological restoration, habitat restoration, climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation in Tasmania, covering 12,000 hectares. To learn more about TLC, click the link below:
OUR ACCREDITATIONS & MEMBERSHIPS
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