Meeting papers

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING                                                                      9 DECEMBER 2025


benefits from renewable energy assets and energy efficiency upgrades; as well as improved
biodiversity conservation and community wellbeing through environmental planting and restoration
projects.
(3)     Australian     Academy      of     Science     (2021) The     Risks     to    Australia    of    a    3°C      Warmer        World.
https://www.science.org.au/files/userfiles/support/reports-and-plans/2021/risks-australia-three-deg-warmer-world-report.pdf
(4) Australian Treasury (2023) 2023 Intergenerational Report: Australia’s Future to 2063. https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-
08/p2023-435150.pdf
(5) WRI & WBCSD (2004) GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. https://www.ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/standards/ghg-protocol-
revised.pdf
(6) Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) (2025) SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard v1.3
(7) Macintosh A. et al. (2024) Commun. Earth Environ. 5, 149. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01313-x
(8) Thales A.P. et al. (2023) Science 381, 873–877. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade3535
(9) Rathi A., White N. & Pogkas D. (2022) “Junk carbon offsets are what make these big companies ‘carbon neutral’.” Bloomberg News.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022%2Dcarbon%2Doffsets%2Drenewable%2Denergy/


4. From 2016 to now

In 2016, Council made its first capital investment in direct emissions reduction, allocating $116,000
in the initial year within the $19.7m capital works program. As shown in Figure 4, the Zero Emissions
(ZEN) program for capital investment has received a total budget of $4.06 million since inception;
however, only $2.11 million has been expended due to resource limitations and the difficulty of
driving change on a systemic issue such as climate change mitigation. At the time, the budget
underspend was decided not to roll over into future years and not be made available to fund
emergent works on existing energy assets. These budget challenges have led to constraints on new
projects aimed at reducing emissions and lowering energy costs since FY24/25.




Figure 4: ZEN Capital Works Budget and Expenditure

A temporary Emissions Reduction Officer role was established in 2017 to help drive action within the
organisation and was subsequently made permanent in 2022. Until recently, there has been one
dedicated role to driving emissions reduction, including delivery of capital works projects, asset
monitoring, maintaining partnerships, carbon accounting, carbon reporting, supporting community
climate action and policy development. A temporary role of Climate Change & Sustainability Officer
to support community climate action and organisation sustainability actions was established in 2022
and a temporary part time role assisted with capital works projects over the last year. A 12 month




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