2022-07-18 General Committee Meeting Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                       18 JULY 2022


monitor any environmental performance, or encourage alternatives to fossil fuel vehicle use.
Environmental upgrades also include improving the buildings resilience to climate change impacts.
An EUA is an agreement where a building owner borrows money for environmental building
upgrades from a financier and makes the repayments through the local council rates system.
These repayments are known as an Environmental Upgrade Charge. Essentially, an EUA is a
loan for implementing building efficiency, climate resilience and overall sustainability improvements
that is repaid through its council rates over periods of up to 20 years. Council’s involvement in this
process ensures that the loan is highly secure, and the lender will provide better terms.
Environmental Upgrade Agreements were established by the City of Melbourne in 2002 through
its Sustainable Melbourne Fund to encourage investment in sustainable buildings. EUAs were first
offered by the City of Melbourne under the City of Melbourne Act. The Victorian Local Government
Act (1989) was then amended in 2015 so that all Victorian councils can offer EUAs. EUAs are now
offered in Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia, with over 40 participating councils.
Initially EUA’s were available to commercial and industrial properties however Victoria has recently
amended its Local Government Act again to extend EUAs to residential properties and to include
improvements that will assist with climate change adaptation.
It is not mandatory for councils to offer EUAs once the legislation allows for it. Each individual
council can decide to offer business and residents EUAs in accordance with their own strategies
and priorities.
EUAs are not yet offered in Queensland and require a legislative amendment to the Local
Government Act 2009 and the City of Brisbane Act 2010 to enable Councils to offer EUAs to
residents and businesses.
How EUAs Operate
Where EUAs have been enabled (Vic, SA and NSW), the process of an Environmental Upgrade
Agreement is as follows:
a.    A building owner agrees to carry out environmental upgrade works in respect of a building to
      improve the energy, water or environmental efficiency of the building or improve climate
      resilience. The building owner can ask the tenants to contribute or cover the cost of the
      upgrades through the savings made on their energy bills and running costs;
b.    A finance provider agrees to advance funds to the building owner to finance those
      environmental upgrade works; and
c.    The Council agrees to levy a charge on the relevant land for the purpose of repaying the loan
      to the finance provider;
d.    The building owner repays the loan through the Council rates;
e.    Council repays the finance provider.




                          Figure 1: How Environmental Upgrade Agreements work

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