City of Rockingham Minutes – SMRC RRRC WCF Odour Issue – 22 March 2011
1. Purpose of Report
To seek the Council’s endorsement of the updated Corporate Local Action Plan (CLAP) which identifies actions designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the City’s activities.
2. Background
The Council joined the Cities for Climate Protection? (CCP) Program in October 1998. In November 2000, the Council resolved to have community greenhouse reduction undertaken as a regional approach with other Southern Metropolitan Regional Councils, directed by the ‘Regional Community Greenhouse Strategic Plan’ which is now known as ‘ClimateWise’. In doing so, the Council concentrated on organisational activities through the adopted Corporate Local Action Plan.
The focus of the Program is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and operates on the following five-milestone framework:-
1. Conduct an emission inventory of both council and community activities and prepare a forecast of emissions by the Year 2010;
2. Establish an emissions reduction goal;
3. Develop and adopt a local action plan (or Corporate Local Action Plan);
4. Implement the local action plan; and
5. Monitor and report on implementation of the local action plan.
In April 2000, the City resolved to adopt a 20% corporate greenhouse gas reduction target and therefore completed Milestone 2 of the Program, following which the Council, in September 2000, resolved to adopt the following:
- The Corporate Local Action Plan (2000), a Plan that identifies actions designed to reduce corporate greenhouse gas emissions.
- The goal of reducing annual community greenhouse gas emissions from 1996 levels by 15% by the year 2010.
Following the above, the City made significant progress towards the implementation of the Corporate Local Action Plan, and as such, was awarded both Milestones 4 and 5 of the CCP Program in 2003.
Implementation activities include the following:
- A series of energy audits on Council buildings to identify cost effective ways of reducing energy usage;
- The implementation of energy audit recommendations;
- The establishment of a Renewable Energy Projects Fund to fund alternative energy production measures for Council operations;
- The introduction of 100% recycled paper in the Administration Building;
- Successful and continued implementation of the ‘Switch Off Campaign’ in 2009/2010 – a motivational program to encourage Council administration staff to switch off standby power;
- The purchase of Earth Friendly Power for the Council Administration Building and all three libraries;
- The installation of efficient lighting devices in Council buildings;
- The establishment of internships for university students to focus on the preparation of feasibility studies for renewable energy projects for the City; and
- Ongoing energy audits in selected Council facilities.
In order to continue working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to maintain the benefits of the CCP Program, the Council, in July 2003 endorsed the City’s involvement in the ‘CCP Plus’ component.
As a participant of ‘CCP Plus’, the City has undertaken the following initiatives:
- Annual monitoring of greenhouse gas reduction measures implemented by the City to quantify the savings that have been made.
- A re-inventory of corporate greenhouse gas emissions for the 2005/2006 financial year to determine the current rate of emissions by the City.
The 2005/06 inventory of corporate emissions was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the CLAP. The inventory revealed that the City is releasing 4,000 tonnes of emissions more than it should to achieve the 2010 emissions goal of approximately 8,000 tonnes eCO2. On this basis, it was considered that the CLAP required review to assess the effectiveness of current initiatives, and include new initiatives, to assist in meeting the emissions reduction target.
The reviewed CLAP was then endorsed by the Council in June 2009 which involved confirming the unsatisfied and ongoing actions and adding new actions. The Environmental Planning Team then assigned tentative responsibilities and completion dates to each of the actions.
An ‘Implementation Working Group’ was convened with relevant officers, representing Planning Services, Asset Maintenance, Engineering & Parks Services, Information Technology, and Waste Services, with the objective to discuss the status of the CLAP (2009), the tasks assigned to each department and barriers to their implementation.
3. Details
The ‘Implementation Working Group’ has since established which CLAP actions have been implemented and whether the other actions are still considered workable. The level of priority given to each of the CLAP actions was also reviewed. The Environmental Planning staff then consulted one on one with the members of the Implementation Working Group to determine and update the current status of the actions in the CLAP (2009). The meetings identified actions, from
the Plan that had been completed and those that were no longer valid. These actions are listed below.
4. Implications to Consider
a. Consultation with the Community
Nil
b. Consultation with Government agencies
Nil
c. Strategic
The proposal falls within Function Area 3 – Land Use and Environment in the Council’s Strategic Plan under Action Plan 8.3 – Implement community and corporate greenhouse gas reduction strategies in co-operation with the Southern Metropolitan Regional Council.
d. Policy
Nil
e. Financial
The implementation of selected actions within the Local Action Plan will incur costs, however, for the actions to be funded by the Council, they must be acknowledged in the Team Plans of the various Departments responsible for implementation then considered for funding.
f. Legal and Statutory
Nil
