30 years of community and climate action in the Waikato
Celebrating the history and future of Go Eco, the Waikato Environment Centre
Last night was the Go Eco AGM - where we celebrated our 30th birthday. This is my Chairperson’s report, outlining some of the milestones the organisation has gone through as it’s grown and shifted. As well as some amusing photos to show the passing of time.
It’s an honour to be the chairperson of Go Eco, but tonight it feels quite auspicious to be able to reflect on our history and future with you all. This is no usual AGM - we are celebrating 30 years of biodiversity, sustainability, and climate action in the Waikato, and to stand here as someone who is also 30 years old, feels pretty special.
Just as I came into the world, quite different in size and shape to who I am now, Go Eco didn’t start as Go Eco. In 1993, Hamilton City Council established the Hamilton Community Environmental Programme - based on growing community interest and developed into a forum of existing environmental groups and organisations. Enviroschools can also trace their origin back to this very same starting point.
By 2003, I had grown from a scrawny premature baby to a pre-teen almost as tall as I am now, and Hamilton City Council successfully applied to the government for a grant to set up an environment centre, and the Hamilton Environment Centre Trust began operating out of Ward Street - with a focus for what is still some of our core operations today: education and resources around biodiversity, waste minimisation, energy efficiency, and sustainable living. Our very first employee was Katherine Hay, who is with us tonight.
In 20101, the year I graduated high school, Go Eco was also preparing to expand their horizons - changing our name to the Waikato Environment Centre Trust, under the board stewardship of Pamela Storey, who is also with us tonight.
In 2014, I was starting my Master’s degree at the University of Waikato, and the Trust moved into their high profile site at Five Cross Roads - establishing food waste rescue, e-waste recycling, the shop, and in-community education. The year before, Katherine Hay handed over her manager’s role to Ruth Seabright, who managed the organisation till 2016 when Sonia Furdson took over. In that same period, Go Eco became a founding member of the national Environmental Centre organisation, Environment Hubs Aotearoa.
Skip ahead to 2017, the Trust was on a roll, outgrowing our home at Five Cross Roads and moving to our current home in Frankton. With that came the rebrand from the Waikato Environment Centre (which is still our legal name), to Go Eco - in part to better establish a unique brand, but also, I’ve been told, so we wouldn’t get as many calls from grumpy ratepayers trying to pay their regional rates bill to Environment Waikato (as Regional Council was previously known). We've been here ever since.
In 2018, Pamela Storey passed the torch to Rob Moore as chairperson, and Sonia handed over the operational management to Jo Wrigley. While we might have Hamilton City Council as an organisation to thank for our origins and for ongoing funding, we’ve not always seen eye-to-eye with those elected to represent us. For example in 2019, Hamilton City Council attempted to reject a Go Eco report that mentioned colonisation and capitalism in the context of voluntary biodiversity work. This is a perfect example of how our work has challenged decision-makers, pushed back against the status quo, and highlighted how equity for people and planet go hand-in-hand. Our two timelines, of my life and Go Eco intertwine here - as I joined the Go Eco board just after this in 2019.
Rob and Jo steered us through the unprecedented years of COVID, which saw us operating as an essential service and expanding our work in biodiversity, with Rob then stepping down as chairperson in 2021. Rob was a part of the board for 8 years, and he said in his final chair’s report that he remembers the excitement of needing to hire a second staff member, whereas we now employ 19 staff on the Living Wage. Taking a moment to pause and reflect on our journey as an organisation is really important.
We’ve saved over 2 million kgs of food waste since starting this workstream in 2014, the equivalent of 4 million kgs of carbon stopped from entering our atmosphere - or the same as 2 million litres of petrol staying in the ground. It’s also thousands of people in our communities who had more kai on the table than they had before, connections made to the rest of our work and to our community houses and other supporting organisations. It’s climate action and it’s social justice and mutual aid.
We’ve had 40,000 people attend events, learn from our workshops, and make a decision to engage with the work we do since 2015. This might be a tree pruning class with Michael, a home energy discussion with Simon2, a rat tunnel making session with Karen - people get to turn their aspirations to live differently into tangible knowledge and tools.
2 million kgs of food waste rescued since 2014
40,000 people have attended workshops and events since 2015
5 years of donated time from our volunteers since 2015
Over the same period of time, we’ve been gifted 40,000 hours of volunteer labour. That’s the equivalent of nearly five years that people have chosen to donate because they believe in the work we do. Many of our volunteers have attended a workshop or an event, or been a recipient of our food rescue work, and reciprocate it through coming back to us to further our work and reach more people.
I cannot neglect to acknowledge board members past, who have done all the boring but necessary work of keeping us financially sustainable and afloat. Back in 2008, we were operating with $100,000 a year in income, and just 16% of it was self-generated. I shudder to think of how nerve-wracking receiving back those funding applications would have been during that time - it can be extremely hard as a charity to be self-sufficient. Fast forward ten years to 2018, we were working with half a million dollars in income, and we’d bulked that up to 22% of it self-generated. Increasing our self-sufficiency allows us to challenge colonial systems of philanthropy and the three-year political cycle. Our enterprise income supports our research and investigation into climate-resilient systems at a grassroots level.
This year, we’ve hit the milestone of over $1m in income, and we’re sitting at 50% self-generated. This is a massive milestone, and one that I hope reinforces that we are here to stay, showing that you can do things differently, and provide consistency for our community. Looking into the future, we know consistency and support is what our communities need to weather the climate crisis.
We owe all the achievements we’ve made to date to the people who came before us. The board members who gave up their time to discuss audits and strategic plans, our staff who have implemented our vision, and our volunteers who turned up rain or shine. We wouldn’t be where we are today without them deciding to do something - Go Eco is the tree we can enjoy the shade of, planted 30 years ago by people who knew we would value it today. This collaboration and collective action has allowed us to have a much bigger impact than any one of us on our own. I’m extremely proud to be a part of this work and I also hope that somewhere out there is a baby born this year who will one day be chairperson at our 60th anniversary. Until they’re ready to take up this mahi, we’ve got this.
This is when the Go Eco Facebook page was also made, aka our archive of photographs.
Simon is one of our longest-serving staff members and our most photographed - it’s hard to find a photo he’s not in.