2018-01-15 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                15 JANUARY 2018


4.   Reduce Emissions - Scope 3

Scope 3 emissions are those emissions that are not directly owned or controlled by the
organisation and are assessed for relevance and materiality. Scope 3 emissions include
electricity consumption from third-party street lighting, indirect emissions embedded within
purchased goods and services, the production and transmission of electricity and fuel, waste
generated by Council operations, business travel and employee commuting.

Individually these categories of Scope 3 emissions account for <1 to 12% of Council’s total
footprint, however cumulatively they comprise approximately 27% of the total footprint and are
therefore required to be reported under the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS)
methodology. NCOS is Australia’s only government supported voluntary carbon neutral scheme
and is the standard that Council is using to measure and report its carbon emissions.

Reducing Council’s fuel and electricity consumption will also reduce the Scope 3 emissions
related to their production and transmission. The ZEN Action Plan includes initiatives related to
waste generated by Council operations and business travel as Council has influence over these
emissions.

Scope 3 emissions also include Street lighting that is owned and controlled by others i.e. non-
contributed assets – owned by Queensland Energy/Energex (Rate 1) and contributed assets –
generally from development approvals (Rate 2). Energex has commenced a trial of LED
Streetlights across Brisbane. Council will monitor Energex’s plans to roll out LEDs across its
portfolio of streetlights and the impact this will have on Council’s emissions. A successful trial
will see the progressive introduction of standard LED streetlights for residential streets with
greater energy efficiency across the Energex portfolio.

5.   Offset residual emissions

The focus in the short to medium term is to reduce Council’s emissions through energy
efficiencies and renewable emissions and to reduce landfill gas emissions. In the longer term,
Council will need to consider options for offsetting its residual emissions that are not technically
or financially feasible to reduce further. The ZEN Action Plan identifies the actions to be
undertaken over the next 3 years to inform the development of an appropriate offset strategy and
determine effective offset options.

6.   Community Engagement

As outlined in the ZEN Strategy principles, Council has a leadership role to set an example of
best practice for the community. Whilst Council’s initial focus has been to reduce the emissions
of its own operations, the ZEN Action Plan includes the development and implementation of a
Community Engagement strategy to share Council’s own experience in emissions reduction with
the broader community and assist the whole of Noosa Shire to reduce its emissions profile

7.   Cities Power Partnership

Council has joined the Climate Council’s Cities Power Partnership (CPP). The CPP is a national
program to highlight the initiatives local councils are undertaking to reduce emissions and
address climate change. The CPP provides a connection and information sharing opportunity
between Local Governments. Participating councils are directly connected with 2-3 other Local
Governments, providing direct information sharing and learning arrangements. Council also has
access to all participants and a wide range of resources and information. Participation in the
CPP is at no cost to Council. It is a requirement of CPP membership for participating councils to
select 5 key actions from The Partnership Action Pledge which is a list of 43 options on which to
undertake action and report progress.


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