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.
NAVIGATOR
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WHY TINY HOMES?
MEASURING
OUR CARBON
FOOTPRINT
SUPPORTING SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
The Hut collects and stores electricity from the sun.
MEASURING OUR CARBON EMISSIONS
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.
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
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.