Image: Centre for Alternative Technology/flickr
Victoria’s City of Greater Geelong has rolled out a new environmental strategy to help in reducing the city’s and community generated carbon emissions.
Under the strategy, which builds on the City’s Greenhouse Response 2008-11, Low Carbon Growth Plan and a range of energy saving initiatives already carried out, the council has create a new set of targets to reach ‘zero carbon emissions’.
City of Greater Geelong Administrator Peter Dorling the strategy will drive the council’s corporate and community emissions reduction activities into the future.
The Zero Carbon Emissions Strategy will guide works on seven City buildings, including the installation of up to 500kW of solar on buildings at Leisurelink, the National Wool Museum, Bellarine Sports and Aquatic Centre, the Arena, Anakie Road Depot and the Grove Centre.
The strategy sets targets to reduce emissions from the City’s buildings and vehicle fleet to 50 per cent by 2020, 75 per cent by 2035 and 100 per cent by 2050, based on 2014–15 emissions.
Mr Dorling said other actions to meet targets included improving the energy efficiency within the City’s buildings and purchasing carbon offsets in the short term with the intention of transitioning to investing in energy efficiency and renewables.
According to the council, innovative partnership projects will be critical to the City meeting longer term emission reduction targets.
“Feedback on emissions reduction opportunities was gathered through 384 completed surveys of the community and council staff, workshops and one-on-one interviews with community and business stakeholders,” he said.
