2026 Cup Wrap-up:

The Green Impact Cup is a unique inter-program competition for Australasian Green Impact teams to showcase their commitment to sustainability while competing for fantastic prizes! The ever-evolving challenges this year saw 223 individuals across 32 teams take on two different sustainability challenges, capturing biodiversity behind the lens and baking creations inspired by threatened species. The creativity and commitment shown by all teams across Australia and New Zealand shows that small actions really do add up to big change.

Congratulations to our champions for the three challenges:

Biodiversity Photography Challenge:

• AU Winner – Green Balance – University of Tasmania
• AU Runner-up – Rural Regenerates – University of Sydney
• NZ Winner – Green601 – Victoria University of Wellington
• NZ Runner-up – Kākāriki – Auckland University of Technology

Threatened Species Bake-off Challenge🐨🍰

• Overall Winner – MSP Edible Garden Group – University of Tasmania
• Overall Runner-up – Go Green Sparks! – Auckland University of Technology
• Group Event Winner – Matilda Centre Green Team – University of Sydney
• Honerable Mention (Underrepresented Plant) – Rural Regenerates – University of Sydney

We extend our warm thanks to all participants for their enthusiasm and commitment. Together, you’ve sparked conversations, built connections, and inspired action across campuses and communities.

We’re excited to see how teams will raise the bar again in 2027!

NZ Winner ‘Borrowed Shelter’

This beautiful shot captures a seal making itself at home beneath an old lifebuoy stand – a structure built for human safety transformed into the perfect place for a rest. It’s a wonderful reminder of how closely wildlife and human spaces overlap, and the remarkable adaptability of the species that share our coastlines.

📸 Wanying Tang

🌿 Team Green601

🏫 Victoria University of Wellington

AU Winner ‘Lonely Mushroom’

Captured at Russell Falls in Mount Field National Park, this beautiful image draws attention to the tiny, often-overlooked biodiversity of Tasmania’s temperate rainforests. Perched on a moss-covered fallen log, the small woodland mushroom is part of an ecosystem where fungi, mosses, ferns and decomposing wood work together to recycle nutrients and support a thriving forest.

📸 Joyce Cheung

🌿 Team Green Balance

🏫 University of Tasmania

NZ Runner-up ‘Backyard Bee’

Titled ‘Backyard Bee’, this striking close-up captures a bumblebee feeding on a tiny flower – a lovely glimpse into the biodiversity that can be found right on our doorstep. It’s a reminder that supporting biodiversity doesn’t always require vast natural spaces. Gardens, backyards and other urban green spaces can all provide valuable food and habitat for pollinators and other wildlife.

📸 Simon Todd

🌿 Team Kākāriki

🏫 Auckland University of Technology

AU Runner-up ‘Ploughman’s’

This is a wonderful example of how thoughtful infrastructure can create space for both people and nature. Once a swampy paddock, the site was transformed into a stormwater harvesting system and has since become home to an impressive diversity of native flora and fauna. A beautiful reminder that people, infrastructure and biodiversity can coexist – and even thrive – together.

📸 Kiffin Miller

🌿 Team Rural Regenerates

🏫 University of Sydney

Overall Winner ‘Oranage-bellied Parrot’

Once again, Julia from the MSP Edible Garden Group showed her culinary skills with this lemon-poppy seed cake with vanilla buttercream to raise awareness of the critically endangered oranage-bellied parrot.

🍰 Julia Tate

🌿 MSP Edible Garden Group

🏫 University of Tasmania

Overall Runner-up ‘Kākāpō, Takahē, Hoiho, Roroa’

This Go Green Sparks! team went above and beyond with their Aoteraroa bird species creations. Four species, instead of one, were created to represent a range of ecosystems (forest, tussock grassland, coastal and forest floor) and a spectrum of threat classifications (critical, endangered and vulnerable).

🌿 Team Go Green Sparks!

🏫 Auckland University of Technology

Best Group in-house bake-off Winner

The Matilda Centre Green Team collaborated with their Social Committee to turn the Bake Off into a ‘Threatened treaties’ challenge! They had six fabulous submissions with additional facts around threatened species such as the Great White Shark, Fritillary Butterfly, bees, Qualls, and Tasmanian Live-bearing Sea Star!

🌿 Matilda Centre Green Team

🏫 University of Sydney

Honourable Mention ‘Under-represented Plant Species’

The Acacia meiantha Wiradjuri for ‘bright star’ and is only found in three small areas on the central tablelands of New South Wales. The plant habitat is threatened by invasive weeds, livestock and activities that result due to deforestation. The mighty plant species are often overlooked in our bake-off challenge, so well done to the team for representing them!

🍰 Kiffin Miller

🌿 Team Rural Regenerates

🏫 University of Sydney