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Ziptrek Ecotours zips into Sustainable 60 Awards

Monday 5 December 2011, 1:59PM

By Southern Public Relations

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Trent Yeo collects his award from Rick Petford, Communications Manager at Ricoh (sponsor).
Trent Yeo collects his award from Rick Petford, Communications Manager at Ricoh (sponsor). Credit: Grant Southam - Campbell Photography
Trent Yeo with other award winners at the Sustainable 60 awards function in Auckland.
Trent Yeo with other award winners at the Sustainable 60 awards function in Auckland. Credit: Grant Southam - Campbell Photography
Zipping with Ziptrek Ecotours
Zipping with Ziptrek Ecotours Credit: Southern Public Relations

QUEENSTOWN

An award ceremony in Auckland last week has cemented Ziptrek Ecotour’s place among some of New Zealand’s most sustainable businesses.

The eco adventure company, based in Queenstown, won the marketplace category in the Sustainable 60 Awards, run by Fairfax Media Business Group and PwC. The marketplace category awards companies that have used sustainable business practices to gain market advantage or strategically address an opportunity or risk.

Ziptrek Ecotours director Trent Yeo was delighted not only to receive the award but also to see how sustainable practice has permeated deeply into a diverse range of New Zealand businesses.

“Beca, Soar Printing, Auckland Airport, Bank of New Zealand, Meridian Energy, Anguillid Consulting Engineers and Scientists – personally I’m delighted to see this calibre of company working towards sustainability. On a business level, we at Ziptrek are very pleased to count ourselves among these top level companies and to be recognised along with them for leading the transformational change needed for long term business success.

“It shows that sustainability can be part of any business if people choose. And when people do choose to put sustainability at the heart of whatever they do, they earn themselves a competitive edge.

“Our company is about teaching sustainability – helping people to understand the issues and how they might address them. We do this in a tourism environment, while people are on holiday and are able to enjoy the natural context of sustainability. They zip between treehuts built high in the Douglas fir forest above Queenstown. In the treehuts guides offer informative narrative and direct them through a range of interpretative panels.”

Collecting the sculptured glass trophy by New Zealand artist Jenny Smith, Mr Yeo recognised the huge efforts of the Ziptrek Ecotours team.

“Our work in creating a profitable tourism operation offering education for sustainability has been the result of a large and extended team effort. There are a lot of people who believe in what we are doing and have worked incredibly hard to help us.”

Ziptrek Ecotours operates from a guest tree house at the top of the Skyline Gondola in Queenstown. It offers two tours across six ziplines (flying foxes) in a spectacular setting overlooking Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu and The Remarkables.

For more tour information please visit Ziptrek Ecotours at http://www.ziptrek.com/queenstown-new-zealand

For more information about Sustainable 60 and how to get involved, please visit www.sustainable60.co.nz