Surf Coast Shire Council Sets Zero Emissions Target

Victoria’s Surf Coast Shire Council has marked 30 June 2030 on its calendar as the date for achieving zero emissions for all its operations – except one.

The Surf Coast Shire is a local government area in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, and is home to around 32,650 people. One of the fastest growing regional municipalities in Victoria, among the Shire’s main population centres are Torquay, Bells Beach, Winchelsea, Anglesea and Lorne.

Understanding the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions locally as well as more broadly, Surf Coast Shire Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 acknowledging the need for more urgent and extensive action to reduce emissions and respond to local impacts.

At Council’s meeting on Tuesday, it was resolved to update the existing Climate Emergency Corporate Response Plan to set the date for zero emissions. This is different to “net zero”, whereby emissions that can’t be eliminated are offset – something Council is already doing.

“Council is proud and excited to be setting this target and in doing so strengthening our commitment to targeted actions as part of our Climate Emergency response,” said Mayor, Cr Libby Stapleton.

The organisation has already made significant progress towards the target.

Renewable Energy

Council has installed rooftop solar power systems with battery storage at various facilities, and it was intended more than 500kW of solar capacity would have been installed by the end of last year. Among the facilities with solar panels is the Community Resale Centre at the Anglesea Landfill/Transfer Station (pictured above).

Council is also buying 100 per cent renewable electricity for all its facilities and street lights. A related action is ditching the use of gas at its facilities.

On a much smaller scale, one of the more novel solar technologies Council has been tinkering with for years are PV powered bins. These have an automated compaction unit enabling the bin to store 5 times the volume of waste as a standard bin of the same capacity. A monitoring system allows the operator to keep an eye on waste levels remotely and sends an alert when the bin is approaching full. The bins appear to work well when used properly, but this hasn’t always been the case; proving there is no cure for stupid – not even solar energy.

EV Shift

All Council light vehicles are to be electric by 2028 and it’s shooting for the same for other vehicles including trucks and excavators. On a related note, last month Council announced funding had been secured for five new electric vehicle charging stations to be installed across the Surf Coast Shire at:

• Lorne (50kW)
• Anglesea (22kW)
• Airey Inlet (22kW)
• Winchelsea (22kW)
• Moriac (7kW)

All chargers will be powered by the council’s 100% renewable electricity supply.

Landfill Excluded From Target

Excluded from the 2030 zero target are emissions from the region’s only landfill near Anglesea. However, Council says it will take all feasible measures to reduce emissions from the site, including flaring methane and diverting organic material for recycling.

Flaring methane seems a bit of a waste given it can be captured and used for energy generation – this is being done at a number of landfills across Australia. But it’s assumed Council has already investigated this option and found it to be not viable for whatever reason, which may be down to the size of the landfill given the relatively small population.