Sustainable Sydney 2030—Vision into Action

With a land area of over 12,000 km2 and a population of 4.6 million, Sydney is Australia’s largest city and its
economic centre. To ensure this bustling and prosperous urban core retains its vitality in the years ahead, in
2008 its City of Sydney Council began planning for coming challenges, getting buy-in from residents for a
common development vision.

One of the city’s largest multi-stakeholder engagement exercises soon followed. Over 18 months, city council
officials held more than 40 events and forums to consult some 12,000 residents, community leaders, business
people and a range of others on what could be improved to move the city forward. Over 130,000 people went
to Customs House when the vision was exhibited.

The resulting blueprint for Sydney 2030 included a number of key thrusts, including looking after the
environment, having a thriving economy, support for arts and culture, and maintaining a place that feels like
home, connected both locally and to the rest of the world. In short: green, global, and connected.

Climate change a top level priority and big challenge

The City of Sydney has outlined climate change as a major consideration. Future adaptation will have its
challenges, as scenarios of 40-90cm sea level rise are projected across the rest of the century. These would
have widespread impact on the city. Extreme rainfall, ecological shifts, extreme heat and local heat island
effects, bushfire, and potential for droughts are all anticipated.

Mitigation and reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will also prove challenging. Australia
predominantly has a coal fired electricity grid. Roughly 80 per cent of GHG emissions generated from this
source, and the generation process is also highly inefficient. Roughly 70 per cent of energy is lost through
generation and transmission, with only about 30 per cent of energy reaching its end user.

The sustainability agenda

With future liveability and environmental quality as major priorities, a sustainability plan was developed with
tangible objectives to carry forward the vision of Sydney 2030. Targets were set on ethical environmental
obligations and a three prong approach to sustainability was created: for the council to lead by example, help
residents and visitors do the same, and to help transformational change through providing green
infrastructure. To demonstrate council’s dedication, among some of the targets set was for a 70 per cent
reduction of GHG emissions from 2006 levels by 2030— the most ambitious reduction plan of any Australian
government. This reduction target applies to both council operations and to the city at large. Carbon intensity
of target areas and energy possibilities were studied and communicated visually to the public and council to
help sell the story, and illustrate the business case for infrastructure improvements.

Leading by example

As Sydney’s government departments are pegged to lead by example, greening of council operations involved
addressing a number of areas. With its energy use coming 56 per cent from buildings, efficiency retrofits and
installation of renewable energy on government buildings took place. An AUS$12 million fund was established
to help speed renewable energy installations to supply localised sources for major energy hungry facilities.

With another 31 per cent of energy allotted to street lighting, retrofitting of all lamps with LED bulbs to cut
consumption also commenced, with the aim of further influencing other utility companies (which separately
owned other grids of public lighting) to come on board. Trigeneration of electricity with high efficiency
turbines in dispersed locations is also under implementation to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The council
is further pushing for tree canopy coverage targets across the city to help improve energy, environmental
economic, and liveability outcomes.

While taking serious action to mitigate the sources of its GHG emissions, the City of Sydney also purchased
certified offsets for its remaining emissions inventory.

Helping community and business reduce impacts

To assist residents to take action, a number of green programmes were created and enhanced for people living
and working in Sydney.

The Better Buildings Partnerships programme brought together the largest property groups to create new
initiatives and opportunities to maximise leadership in sustainability. The goal of this alliance between the City
of Sydney and major landlords is to cut carbon emissions and save energy, water and waste in 60 per cent of
commercial office space in the inner city. Partners include Brookfield, Stockland, Mirvac, Lend Lease, the
University of Technology and the University of Sydney.

Beyond major building improvements that can be made by landlords, tenants can influence 50 per cent of the
GHG footprint of a building. There is not always a productive relationship between building owners and
tenants due to a number of factors (namely who pays for efficiency measures and who reaps what benefits),
but government can serve as a facilitator to improve outcomes. A national commercial office tenant’s energy
efficiency programme called CitySwitch Green Office was promoted, and now comprises 77 commercial
tenancies in Sydney, with each working towards 4 of 5 star energy rating.

The City of Sydney also helped broker innovative financing arrangements. Environmental upgrade agreements
were invented between building owners, council, financial providers to help lower risks by finance companies.
By removing a “split incentive” where the owner pays and tenants benefit, the new arrangement helps unlock
private sources of capital by the council issuing a charge on land, securing a longer term competitive interest
rate with finance institutions (by helping reduce risk), and creating the opportunity for partial cost recovery
from tenants in retrofit buildings. One pilot project underway demonstrated that the building owner got far
better rate than what would ordinarily be secured.

Against the backdrop of a recent decade-long drought and risk of severe water shortage (which has improved
only recently with greater rainfall), the Smart Green Business programme has helped small to medium sized
Sydney businesses save more than 80 Olympic pools of water and over $800,000 in annual bills. In August
2011 it was expanded to show businesses with less than 200 staff how to audit and better manage energy,
water and waste.

Beyond these programmes, a number of other initiatives are underway for home owners and apartment
residents to reduce their environmental footprints. These include a Green Champions programme, Live Green
Workshops on solar PV and hot water, rainwater tanks, growing food, worm farming, natural cleaning, and an
auditing and retrofit of apartments through the Smart Green Apartments programme. One pilot project in the
latter scheme already realised a 30-40 per cent reduction in energy use.

There is also a sustainability “drop-in” centre called the Watershed which an also assist residents with advice,
products, and support, as well as additional outreach for those in more vulnerable communities in social
housing. Additional state and federal programmes are also promoted by City of Sydney where appropriate to
not create duplication of efforts.

Transformational change through green infrastructure

Trigeneration of electricity locally using natural gas turbines instead of coal is more efficient than coal
infrastructure. Excess heat is captured using this method and can be used to warm buildings if need be, or can
be converted to cold water through an absorption chiller, which can then be used to cool buildings in hot
summer months. Economically, this is also a very viable option for Sydney and pilot projects are underway.

To bolster other sources of electricity, a renewable energy master plan including solar PV and small wind
target sites were mapped across the city. Proximity principle was taken into consideration to try and get the
energy infrastructure to be put into the city with a view to improve not only energy performance but also
economic opportunities, industry development. Targets are aimed at 55 per cent implementation for
renewable energy inside the city grid while noting that some projects may need to be located in surrounding
areas.

Waste management was examined with a view to convert waste to syngas for use in trigeneration across the
network (both within the city and regionally). Gasification is being explored as a promising technology and the
cost effectiveness is looking good, largely due to alternatives having a large landfill levy. Gas prices nationally
are also likely to rise quite sharply due in coming years due to export, so this is another factor encouraging
viability of such projects.

With Sydney having some 68 per cent waste diversion from landfill, most through recycling, an emphasis is
placed on advanced waste treatment (AWT) facilities to pick up the balance. Another way to reduced waste to
landfill is by composting organic waste. Waste incineration is not a publically accable option in Sydney.

Due to chronic drought in recent decades, water consumption is still low even though dams have been refilled,
illustrating a successful culture shift in usage. Plans are underway to continue master planning on a water
recycling network for non-potable uses (e.g. cooling towers, toilets, etc.). Building retrofits are one key target
area for these projects.

Conclusion

These combined efforts have helped bring the council deficit for GHG reductions against the 70 per cent target
down from 17 per cent to 4 per cent—a highly successful outcome and one that will be continually improved.
Numbers are likewise projected to go yet deeper for the community target of 70 per cent reductions.

Engagement throughout Sydney 2030 so far at both at macro and micro scale has been extensive, and taken
different shapes depending on the issue. It has proved both effective in improving outcomes of initiatives, and
also concreting political capital.

For more information visit: http://www.sydney2030.com.au