Reducing Carbon Emissions
For many years now, Local Government has been proactively reducing it carbon emissions, which is central to any climate mitigation strategy. This direction was formalised though the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program, which developed the International Council for Local Environment Initiatives (ICLEI) frame work to facilitate action.
In many Councils this framework has been replaced by specific carbon reduction plans which include the key following steps:
- Undertake an analysis of energy usage and emissions
- Identify a list of carbon reduction opportunities across Council assets and services
- Complete a cost-benefit analysis to prioritise the implementation of options
- Once works are completed, monitor and review the performance of the change.
Typically this process identifies the following four fields as high emissions producers:
- Buildings
- Public Lighting
- Corporate Fleet
- Heavy fleet
There are a number of actions that can be undertaken to reduce emissions in each of these fields. Over the recent years Council have invested in large scale PV solar arrays on facilities which provide attractive payback periods for these high energy users and emissions producers.
