It's in the bag!

In a heartfelt display of community support, our Melbourne team recently participated in the "It's in the Bag" initiative, organised by Share the Dignity. This initiative aims to make Christmas brighter for vulnerable women and girls, particularly those seeking refuge from domestic violence.

As part of the campaign, our team rallied together to collect essential items for women and girls in need. Their efforts resulted in 30 bags filled with toiletries, sanitary items, and other essentials, specially tailored for mums, babies, teens, and adults.

This contribution reflects our commitment to giving back and supporting local communities, ensuring that those facing hardship have access to the basic necessities that many take for granted. By providing these much-needed resources, our team has made a positive impact, helping to restore dignity and hope for individuals in difficult circumstances this holiday season.

This contribution reflects our commitment to giving back and supporting local communities, ensuring that those facing hardship have access to the basic necessities that many take for granted. By providing these much-needed resources, our team has made a positive impact, helping to restore dignity and hope for individuals in difficult circumstances this holiday season.

Our APAC Businesses are Ecovadis Certified

Our AU and NZ businesses are officially Ecovadis certified!

Ausco, Portacom and NET Modular have formally been assessed under the Ecovadis platform, which ranks how effectively businesses are acting on environmental initiatives, labour and human rights policies, ethics and sustainable procurement, awarding a rating that allows us to compare our progress to other organisations.

We are incredibly proud to have achieved an Ecovadis SILVER rating, ranking in the 92nd percentile of assessed companies, with an overall score of 71 out of 100 points. Our businesses ranked very highly in the environment and labour/human rights category, and also scored strong results in ethics and sustainable procurement. This is an excellent milestone to finish off 2024, and demonstrates our commitment to not only upholding, but continuing to improve and broaden our ESG initiatives across all our businesses.

This year we’ve installed solar panels and water tanks across multiple service centres around Australia, implemented a comprehensive recycling program to minimise our waste to landfill, worked with our suppliers to continue cleaning up our supply chain and supported many community initiatives with our volunteer hours program. It’s been a big year for ESG wins.....and we’ve got even more on the horizon for 2025... ??

Supporting Community Sport - Garbutt Magpies

For many in Townsville, the Garbutt Magpies cup is a major event on the city’s sporting calendar. What started as an annual football competition has snowballed into an iconic event that celebrates local community teamwork, bringing kids from all over North Queensland together.

2024 marked the 10th anniversary of the Magpies Cup, the annual sporting carnival filled with celebration, teamwork and a strong sense of community spirit.

Ausco has been a long term sponsor and supporter of the Garbutt Magpies and this year was no exception, with many of our team traveling to Townsville to assist in the set up and running of the sporting competition. Our team contributed a combined 365 Volunteer Hours to help make the Magpies Cup a reality in 2024, with one staff member volunteering 137 hours of their own time.

We’re incredibly proud of our partnership with the Magpies, and look forward to watching the cup continue to grow and expand, supporting children across North Queensland by giving them access to community based sporting and building connections.

Stepping on Sacred Ground

In the lead up to the Magpies Cup, some of our Ausco Townsville service centre staff were treated to a very special occasion, being invited on the sacred and incredibly important grounds of Turtle Rock.

The site, located west of Townsville CBD, is an incredibly significant gathering place for many Indigenous Australians however is tucked away and difficult to access, with many Townsville locals not even being aware of its existence.

With history dating back over 4000 years, the enormous boulder and striking overhanging roof features stand out from the surrounding forest, and historians suggest that the local community used the rock as a spiritually important camp or shelter. The site features some notable Indigenous rock paintings which are well preserved and amazing to see in person.

Our team were honoured to be able to visit Turtle Rock and broaden their education about the history of First Nations settlement in North Queensland.

Portacom Auckland - Alternative Work Transport

Increased demand for parking around Portacom’s service centre in Auckland has led to the area being completely at capacity. Cars had begun clogging up the cul-de-sac outside the office which was causing issues not only for the Portacom team, but also their neighbours and deliveries.

In an attempt to reduce the amount of vehicles in the area, the team implemented a new transport initiative which encouraged staff to think of other ways to get to and from the service centre. This included public transport, active transport and a carpooling program.

The team took this in their stride, changing up their habits and quickly adapting to alternative transport, motivated by the fact that by taking part, they went into the running to receive various prizes and rewards... as a motivational tool, of course.

This initiative has become increasingly popular after implementation and has led to many of our staff making longer term changes in how they get to and from work. This has had the effect of not only reducing parking issues, but also leading to a small reduction in overall emissions from commuter transport in the area.

Stayover Dalby - LED Lighting Upgrade

Our 382 room Stayover village in Dalby is one of the highest annual energy consumers in our entire network, a statistic that the team have been determined to improve.

A significant amount of the site’s usage comes from the older style lighting, and as a result, the Stayover team is progressively installing over 500 LED lights across the interior and exterior of the village. The team are also trialing solar lighting in some external areas, with the results of the rollout to pave the way for upgrades across Stayover’s other sites.

The initiative aims to directly reduce emissions by decreasing grid electricity consumption, with the added bonus of decreased maintenance costs too!