Reducing Council’s Emissions

Moreland City Council has been investing in action and advocacy to address climate change and reduce corporate and community greenhouse gas emissions for over two decades.

Council’s three previous strategies – the Climate Action Plan, Carbon Management Strategy and Corporate Carbon Reduction Strategy – were combined into the Zero Carbon Moreland – Climate Emergency 2040 Framework (PDF 1Mb). This framework was adopted in 2018 to provide a pathway for both Moreland City Council to maintain its commitment of carbon neutrality for Council’s corporate operations and to reach for a zero-carbon municipality by 2040.

How are we tracking?

Council actions to reduce our operational carbon emissions over many years are delivering great results.  Our 2020 goal is for emissions to be 30% less than the baseline year of 2011 and a stretch goal of 40%.

We are currently on track to reduce our emissions by 70% by 2020.

Council is certified as carbon neutral

Moreland City Council was the second Victorian local government and the third in Australia to be certified carbon neutral for its corporate operations, first achieving this in December 2012. Council is Certified Carbon Neutral by Climate Active, a partnership between the Australian Government and Australian businesses and organisations to drive voluntary climate action.

To achieve and maintain this certification, each year Council undertakes a continuous improvement approach to carbon management through the following four steps: Measure, Reduce, Generate and Offset. Council is required to undertake external verification of its carbon neutrality accounting every three years. In 2019, we joined a trial with the Federal Government to test a new approach to the methodology of accounting for electricity emissions and were audited through that process. You can download our most recent Audit Assurance statement here (PDF 792Kb).

You can download our Carbon Neutral Program Public Disclosure Summary 2018-19 here (PDF 824Kb), and access more information and previous years summaries on the Climate Active website.

How have we achieved the reductions?

We have been able to successfully reduce our emissions due to a number of key projects:

The Crowlands Wind Farm supplies renewable energy for the Moreland City Council. Image courtesy of Pacific Hydro.

Melbourne Renewable Energy Project
Moreland City Council is now powered by 100% home grown renewable energy. On 1 January 2019, Moreland began purchasing all its electricity for Council operations from the Crowlands Wind Farm in north west Victoria. This includes all street lights, Council buildings, public barbecues, and electric cars. Learn more about the Moreland Renewable Energy Project.

Improving Council Buildings
Council has carried out significant works to improve energy efficiency at many of our key buildings, including Coburg Civic Centre, Brunswick Town Hall precinct, Moreland’s Libraries and Leisure Centres. This includes: insulation upgrades, LED lighting retrofits, double-glazing retrofits and highly-efficient heating and air-conditioning.

Since 2011 over 826kW of solar has been installed on council building producing clean, green energy. Learn more about how we have improved Council buildings.

Solar on Council Leased Buildings
Council will pay the upfront costs to install solar, as well as owning and maintain the solar PV system on council buildings leased to others with the tenants repaying the capital costs over 7 – 10 years using the savings from their electricity bills. The savings from the solar goes directly to the tenants through the existing retail electricity account and once the system has been fully repaid, the community groups get the full savings from the solar without ever having to outlay any capital.  Learn more about Solar on Council Leased Buildings.

Electric Vehicle Fleet
Moreland City Council now has 23 pure electric vehicles (EVs) in its light vehicle fleet. This is the largest council EV fleet in Victoria. Council has 16  EV charging stations including five DC fast chargers, with 100% renewable electricity supplied through Crowlands Wind Farm.

Heading to 100% emissions reduction by 2040

Council will continue to reduce its carbon emissions to reach our goal of 100% emissions reduction by 2040 including:

  • Continue zero emissions vehicle roll-out throughout Council’s fleet
  • Continue expansion of the public EV charging network
  • Collaborate with energy utilities investigating V2G (Vehicle to Grid technology)
  • Continue the collaboration with partner councils in the development and implementation of a transport hydrogen refuelling station that could be utilised by Moreland’s heavy fleet in the future
  • Investigate progressing the transition of major road lighting to LED
  • Progressively transition fossil gas infrastructure to high efficiency electric systems
  • Progress the energy efficiency roll-out across small facilities
  • Continue to implement solar where feasible
  • Explore embodied energy in Council’s civil works portfolio, undertake trials as needed