Photo: © City of Melbourne “Zero net emissions by 2020 - Update 2008”

Building an Eco City, building a Sustainable City

Melbourne is the capital city of the State of Victoria and Australia’s second largest city. The City of Melbourne municipality is the economic and administrative hub of the much larger Melbourne metropolitan region which has a population of 4 million.

Melbourne’s Eco-City vision is part of an overall vision of reinvention as outlined
in the Future Melbourne Strategic Plan, the primary aim of which is to establish
Melbourne as one of the top ten most livable and sustainable cities in the world
by 2020. The Eco-City vision incorporates five themes:
• To become a zero net greenhouse gas emissions city;
• To be proactively adapting to climate change impacts;
• To be a resource efficient city;
• To increase urban density;
• To treat the city as a water catchment area.

In the 1980's the City of Melbourne experienced rapid urban decline and inner
city decay. At the same time, similar to all local governments, the city has the
challenging role of assessing and addressing the impacts of climate change.

Melbourne has reversed the trend of urban decline and made the city one of the world’s most livable cities. Now the city is building on such success to become
one of the most sustainable cities in the world by 2020 as it simultaneously
answers the challenges of assessing and addressing the impacts of climate change.

The Eco-City program is a cornerstone to this transformation and provides the
long term vision, supported by comprehensive plans and sustainable policies to
ensure that significant steps can be built over time to achieve this goal.

Find out more about Melbourne's eco-city vision by downloading this case study.