Organisational Emissions Reduction Progress Report · Report

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING                                          9 DECEMBER 2025


of the Emissions reduction program including solar, batteries, lighting upgrades,
energy/water/waste/fleet monitoring, electrification and fleet transition, as well as advancing the
large-scale solar feasibility study at the Noosa Waste and Resource Recovery Centre.
5.2.4: Continue to partner with other SEQ councils through the Southeast Queensland Climate
Resilience Alliance, including implementation of the Scope 3 Emissions Project and the Regional
Resilience Capacity Building Project.
2.4.6: Deliver the Go Noosa program including the weekend and Holiday Bus program, as part of
the Transport Strategy to reduce traffic congestion and reduce emissions.




Previous Council Consideration
Ordinary Meeting Minutes 19 December 2024
That Council note the report by the Sustainability & Climate Change Project Officer to the General
Committee Meeting dated 16 December 2024 providing an update on the implementation of the
Noosa Climate Change Response Plan.

Ordinary Meeting Minutes 20 March 2025
That Council
A. Note the report by the Sustainability and Climate Change Officer - Carbon Reduction to the
General Committee dated 17 March 2025 regarding Noosa Council's Organisational Carbon
Footprint;
B. Note that the report includes a calculation of the 2023/2024 Carbon Footprint for Noosa Council
as an organisation and its progress in emissions reduction; and
C. Note that a separate report will be presented to a future Council Meeting on the roadmap and
investment strategy to net zero emissions.


Finance
Since 2016, Council has invested $2.1m over ten years towards direct emissions reduction programs
through the ZEN Capital Works Program as shown in Figure 4. Additional operational budget of
approximately $250,000/yr has been allocated in recent years to support the community to also take
action to reduce its emissions. This funding has been leveraged to bring in $2.07m of external grant
funding for projects such as the Noosaville Community Battery, the batteries at Council’s Evacuation
Centres and the recent Community Energy Upgrades. This financial allocation has been supported
by one dedicated Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) staff resource and a temporary part time project
resource over the last 6-12 months.
As the risks associated with climate change continue to grow, it is important to account for the
monetary impacts that continued emissions of greenhouse gases create. The widely recognised
social cost of carbon represents the monetary value of the net harm to society from emitting one
tonne of a given greenhouse gas into the atmosphere each year. The social cost includes the value
of all future climate change impacts (both positive and negative), including changes in net agricultural
productivity, human health effects, property damage from increased flood risk, changes in the
frequency and intensity of disasters, risk of conflict, disruption in energy systems, environmental
migration and the value of ecosystem services1. Using a conservative estimate of the social cost of
carbon published by the U.S. EPA which aligns with the latest science, Council’s operational
emissions are costing society approximately $17.8 million per year, which will continue to increase
over time, and which will largely fall to future generations to bear, unless emissions are significantly
reduced.
The report on the Investment road map to be provided to Council by April next year and will include
a detailed plan to reduce emissions, paired with a long-term investment strategy, and explicit costs
for the accelerated actions required to deliver meaningful and large-scale reductions across the
organisation. The investment strategy will be designed to align the financial scale of action with the
urgency and magnitude of the change needed to both reduce climate related risks and maximise the
opportunity associated with concerted action.