ZERO EMISSIONS NOOSA (ZEN) Inc. GRANT FUNDING AGREEMENT

Tom Wegener20:14

I'll do a foot in campus traffic now. Okay, Nadine, CEO general. Thank you very much. Thank you, Patrick. Actually, I won't CEO general. I will not be CEO general. So let's go to 5.1, Zero Emissions Noosa, ZEN Inc., grant funding agreement. And we have the great Danny Nolan.

I wish I could have just plugged it in and charged it from home. Alas, it's too late. All right. So, thank you Councillors, before you this morning is the report about the funding for the partnership with Zero Emissions Noosa, referred to as ZEN. And it's basically a request that you authorise to actually enter into the partnership and make new changes, and just wanted to note also that there was a funding approved in the 23-24 budget for this, in fact, funding allowance. Yeah, funding to actually really put on board a coordinator so that they can really work through their projects and really focus on what they do best, which is really to help Noosa get to net zero emissions. I think you're all very well aware of the incredible work that zenith does over a wide variety of projects for this community to help reduce its emissions, help reduce its electricity consumption. And that in fact helps reduce costs to residents as well. So their work is very, very professional. They do it on very much a science-based process of actually determining their projects. And they also have been very diligent in one being their deductible gift status as well. And they also look for funding in other meetings other than Council funding as well. So what this funding will enable them to do is to actually put on a coordinator that will assist them in all the work that's done behind the scenes. Particularly in grant funding, in actually allocating and administering all the projects that they do right across the plethora of things that they do, particularly around stationary energy, which is around electricity consumption reductions. And as you know, ZEN Inc. Has been very, very pivotal in helping Council to get the grant funding for the community battery as well. They provide a lot of education website, through their newsletters. They're very, very focused in getting their message out via Noosa Today. And by having this funding for a coordinator, this will really help them to promote that even wider and even broader. So that's pretty much what you've got in front of you and the draft agreement that has been drafted, which actually goes through the requirements of ZEN Inc. In terms of their administration requirements, in terms of their reporting requirements. They are required to put together an annual operational plan, which they do anyway and that actually outlines all the projects, the reasoning behind those projects, and the return on investment for those projects as well. So that's what the report is about.