Sustainability

Here at Callubri Station sustainability is at the core of everything we do. As custodians of this land for nearly 145 years, our family is honored to take care of the people and animals who call the station home. We aim to bring sustainability and balance to all areas of our operations. We are committed to managing our land and resources to ensure it is improved for generations to come.

Our Vision is based on a strong sense of responsibility to sustainably manage the land and a commitment to the future of family farming.

Our Values

Integrity – Safety – Innovation – Sustainability – Authenticity – Collaboration

Our Goals

• To work with integrity and authenticity.
• To provide a safe working environment.
• To apply innovative techniques that improve productivity.
• To manage a sustainable and diverse farming venture.

Sustainability Goals

We recently completed our the Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard with the help of Ecotourism Australia and Destination NSW. The Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard is a pathway program for any tourism business at the beginning of their sustainability journey and has been very helpful in assessing where we are in our sustainability journey and the areas we need to focus on to achieve our goals.

The Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard measures where a business is at on their sustainability journey at
a point in time against the four pillars of sustainability: environmental impacts, socio-economic impacts,
cultural impacts, and sustainable management.

The criteria are based on Ecotourism Australia’s globally
recognised, best practice criteria for sustainability in tourism. Scorecard responses are assessed by a trained
sustainability assessor within the Ecotourism Australia team before a personalised score is provided.

The score is based on the information provided, and evidence or examples of how a business applies
sustainability principles in practice helps raise the overall score.

If you are a NSW tourism business the next round of applications for funding is now open through Destination NSW so throw your hat in the ring here…

Sustainability in Tourism

Here are just a few of the sustainable practices we have in place on our station…

• The station operates entirely on filtered rainwater and uses river water for all the gardens and toilets.
• Both the homestead sites generate electricity using solar panels and produce enough to supply back onto the grid.
• All our meat is grassfed and we serve home grown lamb and local beef, pork and kangaroo. We employ a nose to tail approach to sustainably serve meat protein.
• Our catering team grows fruit, vegetables and herbs using traditional orchards, market gardens and hydroponics. Our menus are based around a strong sense of seasonality and place.
• We employ the time honored traditions and techniques of pickling, curing, dehydrating and preserving to use all parts of our produce and provide a range of flavours throughout the year.
• All our flour is produced using our own wheat on a Danish stone mill. We serve fresh hand amde sourdough bread daily using a very old mother yeast maintained by our local community of women.
• All our dairy comes from a local single source supplier Little Big Dairy. Our juice is locally supplied by Mumblepeg and all our wine, beer and a number of our spirits are sourced from our local regions of Mudgee, Dubbo, Orange and Griffith.
• Our food waste makes its way into a compost facility which is fed back into our kitchen gardens each season.
• We recycle all our glass, plastic and tin regularly when we are driving 160kms to Dubbo for supplies!

Sustainability in Farming

• The farm teams employs minimum till techniques in all our cropping operations to maintain ground cover and moisture rentention.
• Our tractors use GPS to track our machinery on similar paths each time a pass is made across the crops to minimize compaction of the earth.
• We rotate our crops every six to seven years, planting back to native grasses to ensure the land is restored for grazing.

Climate Change Benefits of choosing a Station Stay

When you choose to stay at a property like Callubri Station, you are supporting:

• A farm that prioritises tree and ground cover to provide an ecological balance between modern food farming and sustainable land management
• A mixed farming operation that uses cropping and grazing enterprises to support better land management techniques
• An honest discussion between city consumers and rural producers around the impact of purchasing choices on the farm gate practices.

The future effects of climate change are a very real consideration, particularly in marginal rainfall regions of Australia, such as where our station is based.

The choices our guests make to support a tourism and farming business that prioritizes sustainability is an important step in the future of sustainable agritourism and farming in Australia.

During you time with us on the station we will encourage you to turn off lights and air conditioning when you are not in your suites. We provide recycling and compost facilities in all our dining areas. We ask guests to re-use towels and linen wherever feasible to save water usage. And of course, take an active part in understanding where each of your meals is sourced from!

Thank you for playing your part and supporting us on our sustainability journey!