Projects > sustainability > Carbon Neutral

Carbon Neutral

What does being Carbon Neutral mean?

"Carbon neutrality can be defined as a state where no net greenhouse emissions are produced by a particular entity or activity during a particular time period."

ICLEI Carbon Neutral Framework

The City of Fremantle has a long history of improving our environmental performance and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions through a range of initiatives and internal education campaigns.

Being carbon neutral is part of an overall approach to reducing our impact on our environment which involves four key steps; Measure, Reduce, Switch and Offset.

The City of Fremantle is proud to be Western Australia’s first carbon neutral local government.

What we have been doing

Step 1: Measure

Knowing how many emissions we create allows us to identify key areas where we may be able to reduce emissions and is also necessary to quantify any emissions reductions.

For the carbon neutral program, the City has also been including emissions from electricity, gas and fuel usage as well as business travel and some emissions from landfill waste.

The inclusion of waste and business travel makes the inventory more extensive than has been calculated back to 1996. To provide a more appropriate baseline inventories have been calculated for the 2007/08 and 08/09 years using the full set of emission sources.

All emissions are measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO_2e)

The City will calculate and publish carbon inventories each financial year. To provide transparency early on however, the City has had an inventory audited for the July-September 2009 quarter. This demonstrates that the City's processes are adequate to meet our carbon neutral claim. The key documents are available to download at the bottom of this page.

Step 2: Reduce

Alongside the process of ‘measuring’ the city has implemented a number of initiatives across the organisation to reduce its emissions.

One of the more structured processes is the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program. This five step international program has been implemented in hundreds of councils around the globe. The City joined CCP in December 1998 and completed the last milestone in 2004. After we completed the CCP program, we developed the internal Wipe Out Waste initiative to improve the environmental performance of the City generally.

Specific initiatives from CCP and WOW include:

• Installing pool blankets over the main pools in the Fremantle Leisure Centre saving 49 tonnes of greenhouse gas each year
• Upgrading the City’s computers with desktop LCD screens and small energy packs saving 69 tonnes of CO2e each year.
• Bikes for use by staff to attend meetings
• Transperth travel cards to encourage staff to use public transport
• Reducing the City’s vehicle fleet by 10 cars between 2006 and 2009.

Step 3: Switch

Once energy efficiency opportunities have been implemented, the next stage in becoming carbon neutral is to switch to energy sources that create fewer greenhouse gases.

The table above shows that the City generates approximately 65% of its greenhouse emissions from electricity (buildings and streetlights) followed by 11% from gas and 8% from landfill. Some of the green energy initiatives that the City has implemented are:

• In 2006, the City changed over 18 vehicles to run on LPG
• Installing the state’s largest solar farm at the Fremantle Leisure Centre
• In December 2008 Council resolved to switch to 25% NaturalPower for the City’s streetlights
• In March 2009 Council resolved to switch to 100% NaturalPower for all buildings and streetlights from 1 July 2009 utilising surplus parking revenue.

Step 4: Offset

Once a thorough baseline has been calculated for the carbon footprint, energy efficiency options have been implemented and fuels have been switched for cleaner sources, the final step in becoming carbon neutral is to offset remaining emissions.

There are lots of questionable offsets out there and it’s a complicated business ensuring that offsets are real, additional and verified. To ensure that all offsets that the City purchases are valid, the Council resolved to only use Greenhouse Friendly^TM offsets, which are audited by the federal government’s Department of Climate Change.

For the bulk of the City’s emissions, the City has decided to use offsets from the Southern Metropolitan Regional Council (SMRC). When organic waste is buried in landfill it emits methane, which is 21 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. The SMRC’s facility takes organic waste though and composts it, which means no methane is emitted.

Achieving carbon neutrality is not a series of check boxes. Even though the City has abated all of its emissions through reduction, switching fuel sources and offsets, is has also implemented a process to ensure that we maintain a focus on reducing our emissions.

What’s next

Carbon neutrality is a process of continual improvement. Even though every tonne of greenhouse gas has been abated, there is still room to improve. We are always looking for opportunities to reduce offsets by using clean energy, and to reduce clean energy use by using energy more efficiently.

Some of the projects that we have been working on since becoming carbon neutral are to:

• Establish the state’s only heritage listed sustainability demonstration site at The Meeting Place
• Investigate the possibility of using geothermal instead of gas heating at the Fremantle Leisure Centre

What can you do?

If you’d like to become carbon neutral, you can just follow the 4 steps that the City did

Measure

There are a number of carbon footprint calculators available online - just check out Google.

Reduce

You can check out the Climate Wise website for some tips on how to reduce your energy use around the home. Alternatively a Living Smart course would be another good way to learn about reducing energy usage at home. The Federal government's Green Loans and insulation rebate schemes are two other great places that you could start looking to reduce your footprint.

Switch

Switch to Green Power. This is probably the largest single step that most households can make to reduce their carbon footprint. Check out the Synergy website to see just how easy it is.

Offset

You can select Greenhouse Friendly products that are already offset for you, or else there are several places that you can buy offsets directly, such as the Southern Metropolitan Regional Council (SMRC).

Key Documents

• Carbon Audit
• Carbon Audit Verification - Executive Summary
• Carbon Audit Verification - Main Report
• Carbon Audit Verification - Appendices