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Environment

Renewable ElectricityEnergy EfficiencyMaterialsWater StewardshipZero Waste to Landfill

PowerMax is committed to reducing our impact on the environment in practical and concrete ways, and in accordance with Apple’s policies.

We have long been passionate about sound environmental business practice. Due to this activism, PowerMax was awarded Most Environmentally Friendly Business at the 2008 Lismore Business Awards. Due in part to our efforts, an eWaste recycling facility was implemented by Lismore City Council in 2009 at the Lismore Waste Resource Recovery Centre.


Renewable Electricity

  • Since 2015, PowerMax has sourced grid electricity from Enova Energy, a local, community owned energy company which invests heavily in renewables in the northern rivers region. We have chosen a GreenPower plan, which sources our grid electricity from the highest possible proportion of renewable sources. 
  • Additionally, our Lismore CBD premises used a 4.5 KW solar array on the roof installed 2010, which provided around 30% of our store's energy usage for 11 years.
  • Since we have relocated to Wyrallah Road Shopping Centre in 2022, we have the advantage of the centre's megawatt rooftop solar array which provides 80%-100% of the power of the shopping centre. 

In the future, we aim to:

  • Install a battery wall to utilise the energy generated when our store is closed


Energy Efficiency

  • PowerMax underwent an energy efficiency audit most recently in 2018, conducted by PowerSmart Energy P/L
  • All our new store lighting is provided by energy efficient LEDs
  • The majority of our new store and workshop runs on M1 Mac mini and iMac computers which provide a cut of approximately 30% to our computing energy requirements, compared to our old shop
  • Our new store is well insulated which will cut our heating and cooling bill by an estimated 20%
  • Our most energy intensive consumers are our air conditioning units, which are run at the most efficient dehumidify setting most of the time. Lismore can get very hot in the summer, during these times we close the front door in order to reduce any potential loss of efficiency. Our climate means we rarely need to use heating.
  • There are no viable public transport options in Lismore. Our staff mostly travel short distance by car to work. Seven of our eight staff live within 10km of our store. Alex rides his electric bike to work most days!

In the future we aim to:

  • Replace our remaining Intel based Macs with Apple Silicon to cut our power usage even further


Materials

  • We have switched to a paperless workflow for tech based around the cloud based Fixably workshop management platform. This has reduced the use of paper in the business overall by over 50%.
  • Customer signatures are now gathered on iPad, reducing our need for document storage
  • Customer invoices are emailed rather than printed wherever possible
  • Recycled packaging materials are used for all shipments.
  • We have built our new store and workshop from waterproof materials: marine grade plywood, steel, cement board, glass and aluminium. This will reduce waste when our location is affected by flooding in the future, and allow us to more quickly and economically recover from such events.

In the future we aim to:

  • Switch to a new POS system which will eliminate the remaining paper in our sales workflow.
  • Further reduce our use of paper, cardboard and other materials wherever possible.


Water Stewardship

  • PowerMax uses very little water in day to day operations.
  • We have a dual flush cistern installed in our shopping centre toilet.
  • Virtually all other water is used for drinking or washing dishes.
  • A majority of Wyrallah Road Shopping Centre water usage is supplied from tanks which collect rainwater from the centre roof


Zero Waste to Landfill

  • PowerMax is lucky enough to be based in Lismore local government area. Our council is one of the most progressive in the country with regards to waste management. We are provided with separate bins for landfill, cardboard, organics and paper/plastic recycling, which are collected from the street every week.
  • We reuse packaging wherever possible
  • All cardboard is recycled separately to paper
  • All PET and other recyclable plastic and polystyrene is separated and sent for recycling
  • Our store uses 100% post consumer recycled paper for printing paper
  • Soft plastics are collected and returned to Terracycle Australia for recycling
  • All eWaste is collected and transported by our staff the the Lismore Waste Resource Recovery Centre where it is recycled through TechCollect Australia