Following extensive consultation on how we could better support the community towards carbon neutrality and inform a future Community Emissions Reduction Plan, a number of barriers to action were identified including cost, inconvenience, rental arrangements and knowledge gaps. Incentives and subsidies were considered the greatest opportunities for Council support, alongside education and promotion, infrastructure provision and the creation of new partnerships.

Here's what you said.

To achieve effective climate change action, everyone needs to play a part. We are committed to working with the community and other levels of government to reduce our contribution to climate change.

We are currently drafting two plans to help us reach our goals:

• The Banyule Corporate Emissions Reduction Plan - to reach our goal of carbon neutral operations by 2028, this plan concentrates on emission sources within our control.
• The Community Emissions Reduction Plan - this plan supports the community through incentives, advocacy and education to work towards a carbon neutral municipality.

To achieve this we are committed to investigating and implementing best practice initiatives, to reach carbon neutrality; and to proactively work with the community to overcome barriers to climate change action.

We need to understand more about you and your experiences with climate change and to understand how you want to play a part in our remissions reduction journey.

In December 2018, we recognised the urgent need to tackle climate change. This resulted in a $5 million climate action package.

The Climate Action Package includes;

• Additional solar power across Council owned buildings and facilities
• Energy efficienct enhancements across Council owned buildings
• Additional electric vehicles for Council’s fleet
• 10 ‘Green Collar’ internships
• Development of business cases for long term abatement initiatives (I.e. solar farms, wind farm, street light replacement)
• Extra funds for Environment grants to support community projects
• Development of Banyule Corporate Emissions Reduction Plan and Community Emissions Reduction Plan using the C40 framework for cities.

Thank you for your feedback. Your comments will help us develop our Community Emissions Reduction Plan. Feedback has now closed.