We have taken a very proactive position on climate change because we view it as a very serious threat to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and Marine Park in which we operate.

Greenhouse Challenge Plus enables Australian companies to form partnerships with the Australian Government to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Making greenhouse gas issues a key factor in business decisions has the potential to produce significant benefits for our local reef environment.

At Big Cat Green Island Reef Cruises we have concentrated on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. We are offsetting our remaining direct emissions via “additional” future forest sink offsets supplied by Greenfleet Australia.

Greenfleet is an Approved Abatement Provider under the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Friendly™ initiative.

Our primary focus has been on minimizing our fuel consumption as diesel fuel and petrol constituted almost 90% of our emissions. Actions undertaken include:

• Through a number of modifications we were able to reduce the fuel consumption of our 34 metre/300 passenger vessel by 30%.
• We achieved a 10% reduction in fuel consumption on our 24 metre/130 passenger vessel.
• Replacing high emission two stroke outboards with low emission four stroke outboards has reduced our petrol consumption by over 40%.

In addition the company has undertaken many incremental steps to reduce our indirect greenhouse gas emissions such as sourcing as many locally produced products and services as possible, we even stock locally brewed beer.

Our tours are accredited with or certified under:

• Advanced Ecotourism Certification (Ecotourism Australia).
• Leader (highest) level under Climate Action Australia’s Certification Program (Climate Action Australia).
• The Australian based Planet Safe Partnership (Planet Safe Partnership)

We are offsetting our direct emissions via “additional” future forest sink offsets supplied by Greenfleet Australia. Greenfleet is an Approved Abatement Provider under the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Friendly™ initiative.