The Eco-Friendly Initiatives Creating Earth and Customer Positivity at Stor-It Self Storage of Australia
How great is it when you make a positive change to your business and generate a doubly positive impact? Pretty amazing! Stor-It Self Storage is incorporating eco-friendly initiatives at two projects in Ballarat, Australia, and discovering it can be a better steward of the earth while also pleasing customers.
May 19, 2022
Stor-It Self Storage of Australia was born out of the ethos, “The answer is yes! What was the question?” Whatever storage-related challenges our customers face, we move heaven and earth to accommodate their needs. We also go out of our way to connect with and care for them in a personal way. That includes being a better steward of our planet.
Right now, we’re working on two development projects in Ballarat, Victoria. One is an expansion of an existing site, and the other is a new build. Both will feature eco-friendly initiatives such as solar panels, stormwater recycling and hydroelectricity.
The Solar Farm
We’re building one of the country’s largest privately owned solar-energy farms as part of an expansion in the Brown Hill suburb of Ballarat. The addition will have a 250,000-square-foot footprint, with 92,000 net rentable square feet. The 4.8 kilometers of solar panels will generate enough electricity to power 700 homes while reducing carbon emissions by more than 600 tons. It’s the equivalent of planting 27,500 trees annually! Construction begins this summer, and the system is expected to be operational by early 2023.
The electricity generated from this farm will also be used to buy credits that’ll be applied to reduce our customers’ carbon footprint. They can use these credits to travel to and from our facility.
The addition at Stor-It in Ballarat, Victoria, which includes a solar farm
A Carbon-Neutral Project
Our new build in the Ballarat suburb of Delacombe will also include amazing eco-friendly systems. Designed by Troy Janssens of Ross Barnett Designs, it’ll be the city’s first carbon-neutral self-storage facility. Opening this summer, the four-story building will offer 75,000 net rentable square feet, in 750 units, on a 40,000-square-foot footprint. We’ve used every square foot of the property.
This will also be the first Australian self-storage facility to incorporate a tropical rain garden powered by stormwater. We’ve designed a 3,000-square-foot space on the west side of the facility that’ll be fed from 25,000 gallons of recycled, purified stormwater. The water will travel through a two-mile labyrinth of pipework and two large ponds. It’ll be filtered through beds of pure sand and grasses to arrive at the point of discharge as almost pure drinking water.
The property will also use a hydroelectricity generator with Tesla battery storage. We’ll leverage the building height and constraint reticulation of water to provide the system flow. Our 25,000 gallons of stored water will provide an endless supply of hydroelectricity for the property.
Our final initiative is the onsite sewage purification. Through various processes, we end up with compost for our facility gardens and water to feed the hydroelectricity and rain garden.
At Stor-It, we choose to be more than a self-storage company. We look after our customers and the planet in a personal way. We’re thinking smarter about how we can lessen the footprint of each facility on the environment in which it operates.
Murray Foster is principal of Stor-It Self Storage Group. It’s Ballarat location offers traditional storage units as well as vehicle and wine storage. The company plans to expand with an additional 15 facilities in New South Wales, 17 facilities in Queensland and eight in Victoria. To reach him, email [email protected].
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