Meeting papers

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING                                        9 DECEMBER 2025


   •   Smart Biosphere Economic Development Strategy 2021
        o   Championing the Green Economy
Council has been on a long journey to reduce its climate pollution since 2001. Figure 1 shows some
of the key successes that have been achieved so far, including developing the Zero Emissions
Organisation Strategy in 2016, being the first QLD council to declare a climate emergency in 2019
and endorsing the Climate Change Response Plan in 2021. 2016 was also the first year of the
Emissions Reduction Capital Works budget allocation and in 2017, a temporary (now permanent)
role of Emissions Reduction Officer was appointed.




Figure 1: Council's Emission Reduction Journey

As Council approaches the 2026 target date, this report outlines Council’s progress in emissions
reduction and provides an update on setting a new science-based, ambitious, but achievable target,
incorporating lessons learned and the latest available scientific data.

2. Emissions Reduction Successes
Council has been calculating its organisational carbon footprint since FY2015/2016, with periodic
third-party auditing. The most recent Climate Active-compliant and third-party audited footprint from
FY23/24 amounted to 45,118 tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (tCO₂e). Figure 2 shows
that the majority (95%) of emissions come from Scope 1 (51%) and Scope 3 (44%) sources. The
most significant contributors being landfill emissions (47%), professional services (14%), and
construction materials and services (13%).




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