1. Introduction

Green by Nature ™ is the brand that brings together the four leading landscape services businesses across Australia and New Zealand; Green Options Pty Ltd (ACN 002 456 797) (GO), Super Gardens Pty Ltd (ACN 007 352 114) (SG), Skyline Landscape Services Pty Limited (ACN 073 170 279) (SKY) and our New Zealand-based Recreational Services Limited (RSL) (collectively referred to here under the brand “Green by Nature”).

Green by Nature recognises the importance of protecting the privacy of all our stakeholders and our ongoing obligations concerning how we manage personal information.

Green by Nature will be referred to as “we“, “us” or “our” within this Privacy Policy (“Policy”).

2. Purpose

This Policy explains how we manage personal information and describes the types of information we hold and why, as well as how that information is collected, stored, used, disclosed and disposed of.

3. Policy statement

Green by Nature is committed to protecting the privacy rights of all stakeholders.

In Australia, Green by Nature is subject to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and handles the personal information that it collects, uses, discloses and stores in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) contained in the Privacy Act.

In New Zealand, Green by Nature is subject to the Privacy Act 2020 and handles the personal information that it collects, uses, discloses and stores in accordance with the Information Privacy Principles (“IPPs”) contained in the Privacy Act 2020.

4. What is personal or sensitive information?

Personal Information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual (or from which an individual is reasonably identifiable). The personal information we collect will depend on how you interact with us, and examples include:

  • Name, address (postal and email) and telephone numbers;
  • Gender, date of birth, marital status, occupation, country of birth, next of kin;
  • Information collected during the recruitment process such as tax file number, employment history, work visa and other information to verify your identity and right to work; work health and safety obligations and staff management;
  • Managing complaints and disputes, and reporting to dispute resolution bodies; and
  • Satisfying specific legal or regulatory obligations. We also collect information about:
  • suppliers and their employees (including business name, address and contact details); and
  • potential employees (including names, addresses, contact details, employment and academic histories and the names of their referees).

Without the above details, Green by Nature would not be able to carry on its business and provide products and services to its clients.

We may also use your personal information for secondary purposes related to the primary purposes identified above, in circumstances where you would reasonably expect such use or disclosure, or for other purposes required or authorised by or under law.

If you do not provide the personal information requested of you to Green by Nature, we may be unable to provide you with the products and services you request of us.

If you provide your email address, telephone and/or mobile phone number, you also consent to Green by Nature using these details to contact you for any of the above purposes.

  • Payment information such as credit card details, and other information needed to provide our services.

Sensitive Information is personal information that is given a higher level of protection by privacy laws in Australia. It includes, for example information about an individual’s race or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of political, professional or trade associations or trade unions, religious beliefs, criminal record or health information.
In this Policy, when we talk about “personal information”, we include “sensitive information”.

5. Dealing with us anonymously

Where it is lawful and practicable to do so (e.g. when inquiring about services generally), individuals may deal with us anonymously or by using a pseudonym. However, if individuals wish to make a booking for our services or are applying for a position, we will require the provision of personal identifying information.

6. Our websites

Visitors to our websites do not disclose information unless they provide such information through an enquiry form. When individuals visit our websites anonymously, non-personal information may be collected including but not limited to browser type, version and language, operating system, pages viewed while browsing the site, page access times and the referring website. This collected information is used solely to gauge visitor traffic, and trends and deliver personalised content to individuals while they are at this site.

7. Why do we collect, store, use and disclose personal information?

We collect your personal information for the primary purpose of:

  • Understanding your requirements and providing our services to you;
  • Responding to inquiries and requests for tenders and estimates;
  • Providing information to our clients and for marketing purposes;
  • Maintaining and managing our relationships with our clients;
  • If you are a job applicant, assessing your suitability for employment, which may include conducting appropriate background checks (if relevant for the role you are applying for);
  • Recruitment, training and development of our employees, including for performance management, payroll, superannuation, administration, meeting
  • People you have authorised to interact with us on your behalf (such as recruitment agencies or your referees);
  • Our clients and insurers, for example, if you are an employee who is working on a project at a client’s site;
  • Third parties who provide services we use to run our business including IT service providers, web hosting organisations, mail houses, recruitment firms, and external service providers that assist Green by Nature to perform other shared services functions;
  • Our professional advisors (such as our lawyers and accountants); and
  • Government authorities or other persons were obliged to do so by applicable law

Job applicants: Your personal information (including sensitive information) will be accessible to Green by Nature employees who are involved in the recruitment process and may also be shared with third-party recruitment agencies, and other third parties including:

  • Your referees (or the organisations they represent);
  • Third-party service providers who supply services to Green by Nature to manage your online application or conduct criminal checks, cloud-based video interviewing and assessments, reference checking, psychometric testing or other pre-employment screening processes;
  • Other third parties acting on our behalf during the recruitment process;
  • Law enforcement agencies to verify whether you have a criminal record (where you have provided consent for us to do so and conducting a criminal record check is relevant to the role for which you are applying);
  • Educational or vocational organisations to verify your qualifications; or
  • Our related entities.

These third parties may collect, store, use and disclose personal information in the provision of services to Green by Nature.
Sale of business or assets: We reserve the right to transfer information (including your personal information) to a third party in the event of a sale, merger or other transfer of all or substantially all of the assets of Green by Nature provided that the third party agrees to adhere to the terms of this Policy and handle personal information in accordance with the APPs and IPPs.

10.  COVID 19 vaccination

If you (as a Green by Nature employee) are employed in a role that requires you to be
We may also have an arrangement with third parties that provide us with data to help us analyse and understand how our website users interact with our website and to improve the relevance of our advertising to you on third-party websites. You can use your browser settings to manage cookies. These settings may include deleting all or some cookies, not accepting any cookies or being notified when cookies are being used. Sometimes if you decide not to allow or accept a cookie, it may affect your use or the functionality of our websites.
You can choose to decline cookies by making changes to your browser settings, but if you do so, your user experience may be affected and you may not be able to take advantage of the full functionalities of our website.

11. Overseas disclosure

We may send your personal information overseas and collect personal information from overseas, including when:

  • You have asked us to do so or we have your consent;
  • We are authorised or required by law or a court/ tribunal to do so;
  • We have outsourced a business activity or function to an overseas service provider; or
  • We undertake certain electronic transactions.

In addition, our websites may be hosted by servers outside Australia or New Zealand, and we may also use technical support services that are based offshore. These third parties are most likely to be located in the USA and the Philippines. This means that personal information may travel electronically from Australia or New Zealand to another country, and back to Australia or New Zealand.

12. Use of cookies

We use cookies on our websites and may collect information about you in order to provide services to you. A cookie is a piece of data that a website sends to your browser, and which is then stored on your device.

Cookies are generally one of two types: a session cookie; or a persistent cookie. A session cookie is a temporary cookie that is placed on the device and remains until you leave one of our websites. A persistent cookie will remain on your device for a period or duration specified in the cookie.

Cookies generally allow the websites you are browsing to interact more effectively with your device.

We use cookies to collect and use the information for a range of purposes, including;

  • To maintain and improve the operation of our websites;
  • Track user preferences and product requirements; and
  • Customise our websites and target and improve advertising or marketing relevance.

13. Direct Marketing

From time to time, we may use your personal information to provide you with information about our services, special offers you may find of interest, or new services being offered by us or any business we are associated with. Direct marketing messages may be sent by email, SMS or post.
If you do not wish to receive marketing information, you can at any time opt-out by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact details below or by using the opt-out facilities provided (such as an unsubscribe link in an email). Please note that if you opt-out, we may still send you non-promotional messages, such as transactional messages regarding payments or the services we are providing to you.

14. Storing of personal information

We may store personal information in different ways, including in paper and electronic form. The security of personal information is important to us and we take all reasonable steps to protect it from misuse or loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We ensure compliance with notifiable privacy and data breaches reporting requirements.

Some of the ways we do this include:

  • Requiring our staff and contractors to maintain confidentiality and observe privacy laws to ensure compliance with the APPs and IPPs;
  • Implementing document storage security;
  • Imposing security measures for access to computer systems; and
  • Only allowing access to personal information where the individual seeking access to their information has satisfied identification requirements.

Once stored personal information is no longer required for its primary purpose (subject to any applicable laws), it is disposed of securely or de-identified.

15. Maintaining the quality of your personal information

We take all reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up to date. However, the accuracy of that information depends largely on the quality of the information provided to us.

We, therefore, suggest that individuals:

  • Let us know if there are any errors in personal information; and
  • Keep us up to date with changes to personal information.

Individuals may do this by mail or email (see Contact Us below).

16. Accessing and correcting your personal information

Individuals have a right to access and correct their personal information and can contact us to request access and/or correction. To protect your personal information, we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.
You will not be charged for making an access and/or correction request but you may be charged for the reasonable time and expense incurred in compiling information in response to your access request.
We may decline your access and/or correction request in certain circumstances in accordance with the APPs and IPPs. If we do refuse your request, we will provide you with a written reason for our decision and, in the case of a request for correction, we will include a statement with your personal information about the requested correction.
We will disclose an individual’s personal information to an individual’s authorised representatives only where written authority has been provided or where evidence has been provided that nominated individuals can act on an individual’s behalf. We cannot provide an authorised representative with access to an individual’s personal information unless they can demonstrate that they have the individual’s consent or have the legal authority to do so.

17. Contact us

Please contact us if you would like to seek access to or request that we correct the personal information we store about you:

18. Complaints

Individuals who believe that we have breached their privacy rights in any way or wish to discuss any issues about our Policy should contact us on the details above so that we can try to answer any questions and correct any errors on our part.

Our Privacy Officer will first consider your complaint to determine whether there are simple or immediate steps which can be taken to resolve the complaint.

Your complaint will then be investigated. We may ask you to provide further information about your complaint and the outcome you are seeking. We will then typically gather relevant facts, locate and review relevant documents and speak with individuals involved.

In most cases, we will investigate and respond to a complaint within a reasonable time, usually within 30 days of receipt of the complaint. If the matter is more complex or our investigation may take longer, we will let you know.

If you are unhappy with our response, you have the right to make a complaint to the applicable Privacy Commissioner.

  • In Australia by writing to:

The Office of the Australian Information Commission

GPO Box 5288

Sydney NSW 2001

or completing the online complaint form at www.oaic.gov.au

  • In New Zealand by writing to:

Privacy Commissioner

PO Box 1O 094,

Wellington 6143

or by completing the online complaint form at www.privacy.org.nz.

19. Further information

If individuals would like more information about privacy in general, please refer to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s website www.oaic.gov.au, or the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner’s website www.privacy.org.nz.

20. Variations

Green by Nature reserves the right to vary or replace this Policy from time to time. When we make changes, we will post a notice on our websites’ homepage and make a new copy of the updated Policy available on our websites. Where changes to the Policy are material, we will provide you with reasonable notice before the changes take effect. To obtain a copy of the latest version at any time you should visit our website at https://greenbynature.com.au/ or contact the Privacy Officer as above.