Sustainability

We're proud of our sustainability work and the recognition it has received, such as:

• 2017 Ohio EPA Platinum Level E3 award, recognizing programs that extend beyond their facilities to impact their communities.
• The Zoo is a Columbus Greenspot and has won a GreenSpotLight Award as well. This organization and award recognizes businesses that lead environmental efforts like reducing energy use, water use, and waste.
• 2010 Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission's first-ever Sustainable Growth award winner. 

Collaborating with its partners in East Central Africa, Partners In Conservation raises and distributes funds that benefit both wildlife and people, and one of their three pillars is Education and Sustainable Livelihoods. A few examples of the initiatives in this pillar include:

• Helping local populations better their lives and thrive without poaching or deforestation enables them to conserve their wild places. 
• Beekeeping, agroforestry, basket weaving, and more, have helped our partners support their families while eliminating the need to use forest resources. 

Learn more about Partners In Conservation

Held every year in July, the Columbus Zoo's Plastic Free Eco Challenge focuses on waste-free living and incorporating zero-waste initiatives into daily life. This month-long challenge is free to participate in and open to the public. 

Whether you're new to waste-free living or a seasoned pro, participants can learn from over 120 actions to curate a challenge that is just right for them. 

Full-time team members at the Columbus Zoo, Zoombezi Bay, Safari Golf Club, and The Wilds complete sustainability training throughout the year, including courses in:

• General sustainability knowledge
• Individual interpretation of the organization's sustainability initiatives and programming
• How they can interact with sustainability initiatives in their daily lives

Held every November And April at the Zoo, Teen Eco Summit hosts over 300 high school students as they create Conservation Action Plans for their schools and communities. Some projects have included:

• Sustainable farming focused on pollinator plots, pumpkins, and Christmas trees
• Upcycled clothing and clothing swaps
• Plastic grocery bag collection to create crochet mats for unhoused populations

Learn More about Teen Eco Summit

The Columbus Zoo maintains continuous goals to reduce its carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions, decrease operational costs, increase climate change resiliency, and to empower team members. Examples include:

• Gather data from utilities and track their performance
• Identify lighting locations that can support LED bulbs, including the Zoo's historic 1914 Grand Carousel
• Replacing over three million holiday lights with LED bulbs, leading to an 85% reduction of electricity consumption during the Zoo's Wildlights event. 
• Installing Ciralight skylights, solar-powered aluminum mirrors that adjust with GPS to remain perfectly aligned with the sun throughout the day, providing abundant, free, and healthy natural light to buildings. 
• Using geothermal heating and cooling systems at Mapori Restaurant and Polar Frontier, which take water out of the ground and extracts the heat. The Zoo then recycles the water through an elevated water tank so there is no direct discharge back to groundwater. 

In 2019, together with AEP Ohio, the Zoo installed a microgrid of 308 solar panels near the Polar Frontier region that charge two battery energy storage systems to be used by our polar life support system in the case of a disruption in service. 

Nearby at the Suzie Edwards Conservation Education Building, a solar array of 165 panels is located on the roof as guests approach the Zoo's main gates. On average, the array has generated 74.16 MWh of electricity and offsets the equivalent of 54.2 metric tons of CO2, which is the equivalent of:

• 132,595 miles driven by an average passenger vehicle
• 18.9 tons of waste recycled instead of landfilled
• 9.5 homes' electricity for one year

The Zoo's iconic North America train runs on a fully-electric engine! It can accommodate up to 52 guests, offers fun audio effects, and emits zero emissions. 

The Columbus Zoo hosts three restaurants certified by the Green Restaurant Association:

• Mapori 
• Shores Park Cafe
• Wild Burger

The Zoo's food, beverage, and retail partner, The SSA Group, incorporates a Climate Action Plan in its operations, aggressively pursuing restorative intiatives through four main drivers:

• Mitigating Emissions
• Restorative Purchasing
• Maintaining an Internal Culture of Sustainability
• Influencing Industry Leadership

Did You Know:

• According to the USDA, of the 1,400 crop plants grown around the world, 80% require pollination by animals.
• More than half of the world's diet of fats and oils (like palm oil, canola, and sunflowers) come from pollinator plants.
• More than 150 food crops in the United States depend on pollinators, including most food and grain crops. 

The Columbus Zoo maintains a robust, biodiverse habitat, hosting over 11 acres of pollinator habitats at the Zoo, Zoombezi Bay, and Safari Golf Club. These acres are full of plants that provide food and shelter for bees, birds, butterflies, moths, wasps, bats, and other small mammals that support the local ecosystem and food web. 

Read Stories about Pollinator Gardens and Conservation at the Zoo

The Columbus Zoo diverts as much waste from landfill as possible and uses best practices for resource conservation during the construction and design phases of capital projects.

During the construction of the Zoo's Heart of Africa region, these practices included:

• Preserving the existing Osage tree line as part of the savanna backdrop
• The arrangement of new buildings to work around an existing older grove of oak trees that are more than 80 years old
• Disassembling and donating an existing barn to a local park in Delaware County, where it is now used as part of a reconstructed 1940's-era farm. 
• Constructing the giraffe and hoofstock barn roof for future placement of solar panels.
• Salvaging an airplane and repurposing it as a resting spot for lions. 

• The Zoo's guest parking lot hosts six electric vehicle chargers
• Five electric vehicle chargers are available for fleet and employee vehicle charging
• The Zoo has incorporated all-electric vehicles into the fleet 

Clean Fuels Ohio, in partnership and funded by Smart Columbus, conducted a fleet electrification analyses at the Zoo with a focus on feasibility and incorporation of electric vehicles (EV) into the fleet. 

Using that data, the Zoo has begun replacing vehicles, where applicable, with EV alternatives.

The Columbus Zoo has led programs that provide incentives for employees that drive less, drive electric, drive together, and drive "green". 

The Columbus Zoo offers multiple opportunities for guests and employees to recycle, including:

• Aluminum
• Cardboard
• Glass
• Paper
• Plastics

All recyclables are co-mingled in bins located throughout the Zoo, Zoombezi Bay, and Safari Golf Club.

Electronics Recycling

Since 2018, our parks have recycled over 25.7 tons of electronics. This was accomplished through a local partner, Accurate IT, who recycles all of our electronic waste. 

Ball Aluminum Cups

The Columbus Zoo became the first zoo to introduce these reusable aluminum cups as an alternative to single-use plastic cups. Guests can find these cups throughout the Zoo and Zoombezi Bay at beverage locations.

Batt Patrol

Led by members of the Green Team, this group collects alkaline batteries for recycling at the Zoo, The Wilds, Zoombezi Bay, and Safari Golf Club and contributes to the conversation by reducing the organizations' environmental impact. 

Food Waste

Large, catered events at the Zoo, like the Rwandan Fete and Wine for Wildlife, are zero-waste events! We partner with Columbus Food Rescue to donate any excess meals at the end of our large catered events. 

Gorillas on the Line

A critical component of cell phones, and other small handheld devices, is coltan. Coltan is a very scarce resource, and one of the few places in the world where it can be found is in the forests of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, under natural gorilla habitats. 80% of the coltan used is mined from this region!

With this presenting danger to the region's gorilla populations, Gorillas on the Line was launched. This program increases public awareness of the threats that gorillas face and encourages zoos to serve as centers of conservation action for gorillas through a phone recycling campaign. 

The Columbus Zoo participates in Gorillas on the Line year-round, with a donation location within the Zoo's Guest Relations office, as well as during Earth Week, held every year in April. 

Since 2019, the Zoo, Zoombezi Bay, Safari Golf Club, and The Wilds have contributed over 2,400 devices to the program. 

Styrofoam Recycling

The Zoo partners with Accurate IT, who takes our styrofoam and reuses it for packing materials. During Earth Week in April, the Zoo also partners with the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio to collect styrofoam from guests on one of the days during a week-long recycling drive. 

Each department at the Zoo, Zoombezi Bay, Safari Golf Club, and The Wilds...totaling 42 departments... completes a waste audit, aimed to better understand contaminants and areas that need more bins, signage, or educational materials for proper recycling procedures. 

Bedding, yard clippings, food waste, and manure get transported daily from the Zoo to Price Farms Organics, in Delaware County, OH, to be turned into compost. When it arrives, it is shredded, then, over the next two years, it is turned and shifted. After that process, it is bagged and sold as Zoo Brew compost. While it is available to the public, the Zoo also buys the compost back to be used as topsoil for flower beds and potted plants. 

The storm water from the savanna in the Zoo's Heart of Africa region is being managed by allowing the water to flow slowly through a section of the rocks then into a pool. Here, it will slowly filter through fabric screens and more rocks, which filters the water. Risers were also installed within the storm water management basins to filter sediment and other suspended solids out of the runoff produced at the site! 

• Most men's restrooms at the Zoo have waterless urinals.
• Most toilets and sink faucets are low-flow.
• Non-potable water is used for all toilets, irrigation, and site hose bibs, as well as wash-down functions in animal buildings and water used for pools in habitats.