Amy Hughes is the director of communication, experience and conservation at Wellington Zoo, New Zealand’s first Zoo and Wellington’s oldest conservation organisation.
She began her career at Wellington Zoo in 2005 as a marketing and communications advisor and has since worked in various roles covering learning, visitor experience, marketing, conservation and sustainability. Over the past ten years, she has overseen both the physical development of the Zoo Capital Program and the experience transformation of the Zoo. Amy Hughes was a finalist for the 2014 Wellingtonian of the Year—Education.
She is an elected board member for the Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia (ZAA) and serves as the regional representative for Australia and New Zealand on the International Zoo Educators Board of Directors.
Wellington Zoo is working to improve its digital sustainability and has reduced its website’s CO2 emissions by more than 25 percent. It worked with San Francisco-based digital design company AKQA to reduce the CO2 emissions from its website by 550,644gm, equivalent to the amount of carbon as 3,931 kilometres of driving.
“Once our web agency presented the idea of digital sustainability to me and Zel Lazarevich, our marketing and communications manager, we knew that it was something we wanted to tackle,” said Hughes of the project.
“So little attention is paid to our online carbon footprint, so it really opened our eyes. The best part of going through the process with AKQA was ensuring we still retained the functionality and the look and feel of our website, as animal pictures and bright colours are an integral part of the design.
One nominator called Hughes a “sought-after subject matter expert on diversity and accessibility initiatives as well as sustainable tourism and sustainability actions…She is well respected in the zoo and aquarium community and has always given back to our profession.”