ICLEI Oceania: October 2007

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News | Outstanding Initiative | Previous Outstanding Initiatives | October 2007

COUNCIL INITIATIVE OF THE MONTH

October 2007

Lake Macquarie City Council, New South Wales: Climate Change Action

Background

Lake Macquarie City Council is getting on the front foot by implementing a number of major initatives and establishing internal processes that will lead to further climate change action.

Council has been a CCP participant since 2000.

Lake Macquarie City Council has been undertaking encouraging programs such as working with local businesses on energy audits to reduce their energy use, cost and associated emissions.

: Council staff carry out an energy audit

: Rod Ingersoll, Environmental Officer, with business owner after an energy business audit

Another extremely positive development at Council’s Awaba Landfill site involved using a methane flaring process to power a new 8000-megawatt hour power generation facility in February 2007.

: Mayor Greg Piper at the Awaba Landfill site

This action significantly reduces Council methane emissions, a very potent greenhouse gas, while simultaneously producing an accredited form of green power.

Flaring and power generation form Awaba Landfill site in the 2006–07 financial year resulted in greenhouse gas abatement of approximately 40,500 tonnes of CO2e – that's equivalent to lighting 54,000 average Australian homes with electricity for a year.

Implementation and approach

Lake Macquarie City Council has also taken an proactrive approach to addressing climate change by establishing mitigation and adaptation task teams.

The teams will include interdepartment representatives to increase ownership of climate change action across the organisation. Some staff members will sit on both task teams, enabling identification of the synergies between the two areas.

Council intends to ultimately include representatives from the community and external stakeholder groups in the teams to further enhance its holistic approach.

Benefits

The establishment of these teams will assist Council in building mitigation and adaptation actions into its operations. The teams will allow co-operation/knowledge sharing and will provide an excellent conduit for collecting data to assess Council’s progress towards its emissions reduction goal.

In relation to its goals, Council is currently setting a challenging new corporate emission goal to a 30% reduction in emissions by 2018. Micro targets of 3% reductions per annum have been established to stimulate ongoing progress for the organisation.

Council believes its new goal is necessary to play a responsible role in mitigating climate change and preparing for unavoidable climate variability.

Future directions

For continued improvement Council’s ultimate aim is to become carbon neutral. Following the energy use reduction hierarchy, which involves avoidance, efficiency, renewable and offsets in that order, in asscoiation with fostering organisational awarenessa and ownership will be fundamental to achieving this goal.

Contact details for further information

Rod Ingersoll
Environmental Officer
Ph: +61 (0)2 4921 0142

Lake Macquarie City Council website

Cities for Climate Protection® (CCP®) Australia: implementing greenhouse action through a collaboration between the Australian Government and ICLEI Oceania. The CCP® Australia Program is funded by the Australian Government.