How to Host a Business Event that Cares for Queenstown

1: Choose Activities Good for Your Team and Good for Queenstown

These fun, educational activities support local initiatives restoring and improving Queenstown’s environment, and local community groups doing great work.

Introduce Your Team to Conservation with Southern Lakes Sanctuary

Southern Lakes Sanctuary restores and protects Queenstown ecosystems and wildlife – including 35 species threatened with extinction. Their fascinating trips take your team to beautiful locations, introduce them to native flora and fauna, share what they’re doing to protect them, and inspire them with ideas to encourage biodiversity back home.

• The Bob’s Cove Nature Walk is in a lovely lakeside reserve. Your guide will show your team how they monitor birds, reduce predator numbers, and protect biodiversity. 
• The Hands-On Conservation half day trip heads out beyond the Ben Lomond range to show your team the work happening to create safe areas for native species.

Discover More Queenstown Sustainability Initiatives

The Walter Peak Eco Experience starts with a morning cruise across the lake followed by learning about native wildlife and conservation, planting a native tree or shrub, exploring the farm’s kitchen garden, enjoying a lunch of local produce before cruising back. Operating seasonally from December to April.

Millbrook’s Kitchen Garden Tour takes your team to see biodynamic kitchen gardens in action and learn about Millbrook’s sustainability practices. Sample edible flowers, herbs, micro-greens and vegetables and meet the resort’s free-range hens. Operating daily through the summer months.

Visit Kiwi Park, a wildlife reserve in central Queenstown, and join a conservation show where you’ll meet endangered wildlife and discover the threats they face in the wild. The park breeds and releases endangered species, with over 20 native bird and reptiles.

If you’re looking for more inspiration for low impact activities, here’s a guide to low impact local activities from hiking, biking, and climbing, to ziplining, stargazing and photography. If you’re seeking adventures championing sustainable practices, here’s a few to consider.

Volunteer Locally

Volunteering is a wonderful way to meet the local community, see parts of Queenstown you might not get to ordinarily, and create a positive impact with your business event.

You can get involved in local environmental initiatives, such as The Whakatipu Reforestation Trust, who run seasonal planting days to establish an ecological corridor of native bush and forest stretching from Arrowtown to Lake Whakatipu. The Whakatipu Wilding Control Group also hold regular volunteer conservation events to remove wilding pines around the Whakatipu Basin.

If you’re looking for more volunteering ideas, local environmental action trust Love Queenstown publishes a schedule of local volunteer events.

2: Reduce the Environmental Impact of Your Business Event

So many local business owners are working on reducing their environmental trace they leave on Queenstown, making it easier for you to reduce the impact of your business event.

Stay in Low Impact Accommodation

Queenstown has a range of accommodation options for business events, from luxurious hotels to simple cabins, all committed to reducing their environmental footprint. Here are three top picks to get you started.

1. Not only is The Headwaters Eco Lodge built with non-toxic materials and uses state-of-the-art tech to reduce water and energy consumption (the lodge was the first retreat in New Zealand’s to become Net Zero energy) but all profits go to the Glenorchy community.
2. Ranked in the world’s top ten most sustainable hotels by Expedia, Sherwood repurposes a 1980s motor lodge into a stylish environmentally conscious retreat. They aim for zero waste, are composting, use solar power, grow their own food, and work with local producers.
3. Aro Ha Wellness Retreat is Net Zero energy, by meeting its energy needs renewably and uses Passivhaus and permaculture principles. They offer full retreat programmes for businesses looking to nurture and reinvigorate their team.

Here’s a guide to more great low impact Queenstown accommodation providers leading the way in protecting the environment and supporting the local community.

Buy Local, Reduce Waste, and Travel Slow

Many caterers and restaurants use local seasonal ingredients, so you keep your food miles down and really enjoy a taste of the land. Ask your event coordinator and suppliers to support local companies and growers.

Reducing your waste is another simple way to reduce your impact on Queenstown’s environment. Many businesses compost, minimise packaging, source local, and support waste reduction initiatives, For example, the Crowne Plaza is helping to reduce food waste by volunteering with Kiwi Harvest. Ask what waste management procedures your accommodation, venue and suppliers have in place.

Discuss ways your conference menus can be designed without single use packaging or utensils. You can minimise packaging and single-use serve ware by opting to hire reusable dishes and cups from local initiative DISHrupt. Or ask your hotel and local suppliers to only use reusable dishes for your events.

Coffee is an important ritual to get creative juices flowing, but did you know Queenstown is a on the journey to become single-use cup free? Take an extra five minutes and sit down to enjoy one of the many wonderful Queenstown cafes or encourage your team to take their trusty reusable mugs. You can also hire reusable coffee cups for your delegates from Chunky and put them in your delegates rooms.

Another fun (and affordable) way to reduce your impact and see more of Queenstown’s sensational scenery is to travel slow, by bus, bike, or on your own two feet.

3: Support Local Community Fund Love Queenstown

Love Queenstown is a community fund aimed at protecting the region’s natural heritage. They support regeneration projects such as the Whakatipu Reforestation Trust, the Tāhuna Glenorchy Dark Skies Group, and the Whakatipu Wildlife Trust.

Please consider a donation to Love Queenstown as part of your business event. You’ll be leaving a lasting impact, helping to return Queenstown’s ecology to full health, so it remains a treasure for future generations. And if your delegates had the time of their lives in Queenstown, they might like to consider a personal donation as well.

Get in touch if you’d like to know more about integrating Love Queenstown into your business event, you’d like someone to talk at your event, or you’d like to donate.

We’re Here to Help you Make a Positive Impact

Get in touch with the Queenstown Convention Bureau team to craft an event that counts. We offer free, impartial advice, while local event experts can help you arrange low-impact  accommodation, events and activities that connect your team with this community.