More Joondalup Businesses Get Eco Smart

The City of Joondalup, in partnership with the Cities of Wanneroo and Stirling, has recently delivered the eco-business energy assessment program. This was made possible through a $28 000 grant secured by the City of Joondalup from the Department of the Environment and Water Resources, through the Australian Greenhouse Office’s Community Abatement Grant Program. The funding was used to assist 75 small businesses improve their environmental efficiency by addressing water use, energy use, travel decisions and waste and recycling methods. These businesses are located across all three Cities and the assessment company that has been engaged is EcoSmart.

The current program builds on a highly successful pilot program conducted in the City of Joondalup, which provided 30 participating businesses with an average annual energy saving of $1195 and a 6.2 tonne reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

The eco-business energy assessment program aimed to:

• reduce greenhouse gas emissions from each business;
• identify actions that will result in financial savings;
• develop a program that can be easily replicated on a larger scale and therefore implemented by a significantly wider number of businesses;
• generate community interest so that participating businesses can use their "EcoSmart Accreditation" as a marketing advantage;
• provide the councils with a cost-effective program that links the community into existing program knowledge; and
• encourage the implementation of energy saving actions within the homes of employees/business owners associated with the participating businesses. Follow-ups from previous EcoSmart assessments have demonstrated that generally a number of actions are implemented at home after an energy assessment takes place.