City works on its green credentials

The City of Sydney is to establish a new fund for renewable energy initiatives.

Last Monday Council unanimously carried a motion for a fund worth up to $2 million per annum to finance renewable energy projects within the City’s properties and operations.

The new scheme will replace Council’s purchasing of GreenPower carbon offsets.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore said purchasing carbon offsets had been an interim measure while the City developed its low-carbon and carbon-neutral energy programs.

“Now these projects are underway, investing this money in renewable energy for our own buildings will accelerate emission reductions while maintaining our carbon neutral status,” Cr Moore said.

“While GreenPower has served the City well, we can now achieve more through smarter investment in renewable energy generation.”

The new fund is one of a number of new strategies the City will undertake to reduce its carbon footprint.

“This strategy is part of our work to reduce our emissions by 20 per cent by 2012 through a combination of energy efficiency programs, building energy efficiency retrofits, installation of LED lighting and trigeneration,” Cr Moore said.

Energy efficient LED technology could eventually be used in all City-controlled street lamps if a trial currently underway is successful.

A motion was carried in Council to join ‘The Climate Group’, an international body that works with governments and businesses on deploying low carbon technologies, who will provide support and measurement for the LED trial.

But the debate preceding the motion firmly pitted Greens Councillor Chris Harris and Liberal Councillor Shayne Mallard against one another on the issue of the organisation’s business members.

The eventual motion moved by Cr Harris approved the City joining the group with the stipulation that it did not endorse any of the group’s corporate members or their activities.

Cr Harris told City News he was concerned about being seen ‘partnering up’ with members such as Duke Energy (US) and BP.

“BP Energy currently are trashing the Gulf of Mexico at a great rate … [they were] voted in 1990 as the biggest polluting company in America,” he said.

“The Greens are pretty concerned about hopping into bed with somebody like that.”

But Cr Mallard accused Cr Harris of being anti-corporate.

“Obviously someone in those organisations is trying to change and improve the culture of those organisations, so instead of showing leadership and supporting them, the Greens have to label all corporations as evil,” he said.

Cr Harris refuted that the Greens were not unfriendly to big business.

“What we’re interested in is partnering with people that have a serious commitment to doing something about the way we’re damaging the environment,” he said.

“Cr Mallard is just reflecting the empty gestures that the leader of the opposition federally is doing – talking about planting gardens in parks and on median strips as their answer to climate change – well that’s just a joke, and I think Cr Mallard’s comments are a joke as well.”