We have successfully delivered 90% of the actions outlined in Year Three of the Climate Emergency Action Plan 2020-25.
Our Climate Emergency Action Plan focuses on cooling and greening, sustainable transport (including the need for more active and public transport), the circular economy, enhancing biodiversity, and actions that drive down corporate and community emissions toward net zero.
Highlights of the delivery of the Climate Emergency Action Plan for Year 3 include:
- Launched the “Love Bayside, Go for Zero” Climate Emergency Community Activation Campaign, as part of the highly successful Home Energy Efficiency Expo.
- Reduced waste to landfill through the continued implementation of food and organic waste recycling, with the residential Waste Diversion Rate exceeding 70%. This means that over 70% of the material collected from residential properties was either disposed at the recycling processing or organics processing facilities.
- Maintained ‘Carbon Neutral’ certification for a third year of Council operations, to the ‘Climate Active Carbon Neutral’ Standard.
- Launched the Bayside Solar Savers Program and supported community groups as part of the Climate Emergency Grants program.
- Procured 100% of electricity for Street Lighting and Buildings from renewable sources.
- Designing new Council buildings without the use of natural gas (a fossil fuel) and investigating the requirements to replace all-natural gas use in existing Council buildings.
- Delivered infrastructure improvements to enable active transport such as walking and cycling.
- Improved active transport and connectivity by installing four pedestrian crossings, improving the Bay Trail at two locations, introducing one bike repair station and two ‘Choose tap’ water stations and lowering the speed limit on a number of roads.
Every action taken by Council and the community is important and will assist in reaching our goals for net zero emissions by 2035.
It is important to ensure the Bayside community continues to implement on-ground actions to reduce emissions and improve resilience to climate change impacts so we can protect what people love about living in Bayside.
