Episode: Eight
Date: 6th June 2009. 7th June in WA.
Story: Origin Helping Hands
Presenter: Trevor Cochrane

We all want to do something to help reduce our impact on our environment and ensure the planet we leave to our children and grand children is a better place to live in. One company who is making a difference is Origin and Trevor heads to Queensland to find out how.

Origin- Half a Million Helping Hands

• Origin is Australia?s number one green energy provider, with more customers choosing Green energy than any other Australian energy retailer.
• Of their 3 million customers, over 500,000 of these have now chosen to switch to an environmentally friendly alternative.
• This year they?re celebrating a significant milestone-half a million green energy customer accounts- which includes Green electricity and Origin Green gas.
• That?s a huge number of Australian households who have made the commitment to go green, and choose to have a portion of their energy sourced from renewable sources or have their home?s natural gas emissions offset.
• To say thanks to all those customers, Origin wanted to do something even more for the environment, so they have partnered with Conservation Volunteers Australia and developed the Half a Million Helping Hands program with the aim to help clean up half a million square metres of land around the Great Barrier Reef and Brisbane?s Moreton Bay. That?s one square metre for every green energy customer account!!
• Origin has sponsored ten projects in key customer, community and employee geographical areas including Brisbane, Townsville, Cairns, Bundaberg and Mackay.
• Projects include weed control, re-vegetation, fencing, seed collection, rubbish removal and marine debris collection. These projects began in January and continue until August 2009. All of these activities contribute to the sustainability, rehabilitation and preservation of Queensland?s precious waterways and support a diverse marine life.

Interesting Facts

• Half a million square metres is approximately equal to 19 AFL football fields.

• At 2 June 2009, five of the ten projects are complete and as a result have:
  • Planted 3,992 trees, grasses and stems
  • Collected over 20kg of litter
  • Completed 192 collective days of activity
  • And positively impacted over 406,000 square metres of land
• In October 2006, Origin celebrated a milestone 100,000 green customers by planting the same number of trees throughout Victoria and South Australia. In February 2008 they celebrated a quarter of a million green energy customers by releasing the same number of native fish into the Murray-Darling Basin in Wentworth NSW.

To find out more about Origin?s Half a Million Helping Hands program visit www.originenergy.com.au/helpinghands ??

Contact:
To switch to Origin green energy call 13 24 63
Website: www.originjoinin.com.au