This year, Fifteen Trees and Brentwood Secondary College, Glen Waverley, worked together to help the College reduce its carbon footprint. Over the course of 2 terms, students from the College’s Green Team raised enough funds to purchase 600 trees for the Mornington Peninsula Koala Conservation (MPKC).

The Somers Koala Habitat Project (Coolart to Cerberus Biolink) is a fabulous project to support. With over 70% of landholders confirming their intent to participate in this revegetation project it is also backed by Mornington Peninsula Shire, Parks Victoria and the Department of Defence. And now with sponsors such as Fifteen Trees and Brentwood SC, this revegetation project has grown by leaps and bounds.

Here’s a few reasons why this project is so important:

• Recent research from Deakin University suggests that the koala population has been negatively impacted by the highly fragmented nature of habitat on the Mornington Peninsula,
• By providing a wildlife corridor biolink it will allow animals including koalas to move safely, to reach vital food resources and help maintain viable populations,
• Without this, koala populations will inevitably continue to decline, become isolated and may face local extinction.

Brentwood Secondary College is a 7-12 co-educational, single campus school located in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley within the City of Monash. The College has a proud history of educating students in the local and broader community, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2019. Since the school opened in 1969 it has grown to an enrolment of 1625 students in Years 7-12.

The Brentwood Green Team is a student leadership group that are focused on protecting our environment to ensure a sustainable future. The team includes students ranging from 7-12 years levels, college staff, and parent volunteers. The initiatives and projects undertaken by the Green Team align with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the ResourceSmart Schools (RSS) program.

Over the past six years, Brentwood has completed the five modules of the ResourceSmart Schools (RSS) program, namely Core, Waste, Water, Biodiversity and Energy and saved over $830,000 for the college. Brentwood is currently a four-star RSS school and is on its way to reach the 5-Star status soon.

More recently, Brentwood has been focussing on climate action through their ‘Towards Zer0 Bremissions’ campaign to reduce the annual 540 tons of greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030. In addition to switching to renewable energy, recycling, composting, Brentwood has been actively involved in tree planting (2000 trees planted in 2021), published a Meat-free Mondays Cookbook and organised climate action webinars to our community. Brentwood has been shortlisted as one of the finalists at this year’s Premier’s Sustainability Awards for this campaign. For further information and projects of the College, please visit: https://www.brentwoodgreenteam.com.au/

Fifteen Trees looks forward to working once again with Brentwood and their amazing Green Team with the plan to go out tree planting in 2022 with this amazing group of young inspiring students.

Writers:

Colleen Filippa | Founder & Director | Fifteen Trees

Venkata Kalva | Sustainability Coordinator | Brentwood Secondary College