Climate Change and Energy Transformation

The City of Canning is working towards a low carbon future through an integrated program of major renewable energy projects, energy and fuel efficiency measures, and staff and community engagement initiatives. It is our goal to reduce our corporate carbon footprint to net zero, and to support the development of innovative projects that help our community to do the same.

Council Commitments

Cities Power Partnership

The City of Canning has joined the Cities Power Partnership which seeks to celebrate and accelerate the emission reduction and clean energy successes of Australian towns and cities. City of Canning is one of the founding members of the Cities Power Partnership, a coalition of local governments across Australia tackling climate change. Participating Councils make five pledges to limit their local climate impact, from reducing transport emissions through to getting behind renewable energy.

To view the City’s pledges on the Cities Power Partnership in 2017, please visit here.

Emissions and Energy Management

Resource Use Management Platform

The City has committed to measuring and monitoring its energy, water, waste and fuel. Currently using the web-based platform Azility, the City measures and monitors the City's consumption data and has plans to integrate this into an Online Impact Tracking Platform (Impact Tracker).

Snapshot Community Climate Tool

The Snapshot Community Climate tool has been developed by Beyond Zero Emissions and Ironbark Sustainability and provides greenhouse gas emissions profiles for local government areas, nationally. In the 2019/2020 reporting period, the City of Canning's municipal area emissions were 2,108,000 tonnes of CO2e. To view the City of Canning's municipal area emissions snapshot, please visit here.

Climate Change and Energy Transformation Strategy

The City has and continues to undertake various projects to reduce our corporate carbon footprint and support our community to do the same. Moving forward, the City is developing a holisitic Climate Change and Energy Transformation Strategy to provide a clearly articulated roadmap towards a net zero carbon future for the Council and the community.

This strategy will outline the City’s greenhouse gas emissions profile, set energy and carbon emission reduction targets and provide a roadmap towards achieving these operational goals. The strategy will incorporate energy transformation, emissions reduction strategies and climate resilience for Council facilities and operations, public street lighting, as well as working with the community for creating a sustainable and climate resilient future. The draft plan is due to be released in 2022.

Renewable Energy Projects

Solar Panels

Thirteen City-owned buildings and facilities generate solar electricity through the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. The PV systems have a collective capacity of 400 kW, and the City generated over 590MWh of electricity in 2018. This equated to approximately 1,500 tonnes of carbon emissions avoided for 2017.

Geothermal Energy

Geothermal bores are installed at both the Cannington and the Riverton Leisureplex, to warm the pool water and the air in the pool areas. Heated water is extracted from an aquifer 1km below the ground, and pumped into a plant room.  A heat exchange system then uses the heat to warm the pool water and the pool area’s air. The pool water and the bore water do not mix, and there is hardly any water lost from the aquifer.  When the heated water from the aquifer has passed through the heat exchange system, it is returned underground to recharge the aquifer.

The geothermal systems have been designed to deliver:

• significant cost savings

• reduced consumption of gas

• associated reduction in carbon emissions.

Power Purchase Agreement

The Energy Sustainability and Renewable Energy Project – WALGA Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), is an aggregated contract for renewable energy supply open to all local governments on the South West Interconnected System (SWIS). The Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA) has negotiated a highly competitive Contract Offer for participating local governments. There is currently 43 Local Governments that have committed to 100% renewables by the end of the 3 year contract.

The City of Canning has committed to a phased-in renewables uptake for all its contestable sites, starting from 50% at year one, increasing to 75% in year two, and closing out at 100% in year three of the Contract.

Energy Efficiency

Opportunities to improve energy efficiency of City facilities and assets are assessed on an ongoing basis. Energy efficiency improvements have included:

• LED lighting conversions within City facilities

• LED conversions of the majority of carpark lighting for City owned car parks
• ​LED conversion of sports floodlighting at Wyong Reserve, Shelley Park, Coker Park, Clifton Park and Burrendah Park
• operational changes at the Civic and Administration Centre (including reduced operation and set-point changes of the air-conditioning system, reduction from double to single globe light fittings, motion sensors and daylight sensors)
• ​energy audits of high energy consuming sites
• staged LED conversion of City-owned streetlights
• LED Street Lighting Super Trial Consortium Participation (full Western Power street lighting changeover advocacy)
• currently assessing smart metering options to more closely assess energy consumption at high energy consuming sites
• currently developing a Roadmap to Net Zero, focusing on further options for energy efficiency and renewable energy

Emissions and Fuel Reductions

In order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, the City of Canning is implementing fuel efficiency initiatives such as:

• investigating the purchase of electric garbage trucks

• utilisation of two Electric Vehicles, eight petrol/electric hybrid vehicles and two electric bikes within the corporate fleet

• investigating opportunities to downsize its light fleet

• implementation of electric small plant items over 2-stroke machines.

For further information please visit our Sustainable and Accessible Transport page.

Staff Engagement

#carbonoff: Opt in to Offset

The City of Canning is working with Carbon Positive Australia to support staff to help grow a beautiful future by offsetting personal vehicle or household greenhouse gas emissions with the City’s #carbonoff Program. For less than the cost of a coffee per fortnight – staff can make a huge contribution to our state’s sustainability. A simple, fortnightly payroll deduction facilitates the program. Like a social club, #carbonoff is a completely voluntary ‘opt in’ scheme – however this program has some very tangible environmental benefits – which collective contributions will continue to grow over time. 

Resources

For further information and resources on being sustainable at home or in the community, please visit our Health, Wellbeing and Resilience page. For further information and resources on being a sustainable business, please visit our Local Economy and Prosperity page.

Sustainability eNews

Subscribe to our Sustainability eNews here.