Biodiversity Strategy - Gosford City Council - NSW Government

Milestone 5 - Monitoring and Reporting
Once measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been implemented continual
monitoring is required to judge how successful the measures have been.
1
Council has completed all five milestones. Council adopted both a corporate and community
greenhouse gas reduction goal of 20% of 1996 levels by 2010. Council adopted a Corporate
Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy on 25 September 2001. The Community Greenhouse Gas
Reduction Strategy, including Council’s reduction goal, was adopted by Council on 4 June
2002. Milestone 4 was completed in October 2002. This resulted in a 5% reduction of the
corporate greenhouse gas reduction goal through the purchase of GreenPower and retrofitting
of lighting in the administration building. The inventory for Milestone 5 found that Council's
emissions for 2002, compared to the base year of 1996, were 65% higher.
As a result it is recognised that much greater effort needs to be made to meet the targets.
Inaccuracies were also discovered in the 1996 data that meant that before any other actions to
reduce emissions are undertaken, an effective and accurate data management system needs to
be incorporated. Council's CCP committee will undertake this as they move into the CCP Plus
Program. On 3 June 2003, Council resolved to join the CCP Plus program to be eligible for
further funding opportunities to undertake programs, and to continue the support networks
created with other CCP councils.
Council was awarded a Bronze Award in the Green Globe Awards in 2003 for achieving a 5%
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions based on our 1999 emissions. The reduction was
largely due to the improvements in methane gas management at Kincumber Sewage Treatment
Plant (STP). There are also a number of projects that Council is currently undertaking which
should have a positive impact on corporate greenhouse gas emissions. These include a Landfill
Methane Recovery Facility to extract methane from landfill sites to be used in generating power.
The Kincumber Plant will receive methane piped in from the nearby Kincumber Landfill, as well
as the methane produced during waste processing procedures at the sewage treatment plant.
Methane will also be extracted at Woy Woy Landfill and used for the production of electricity.
The electricity will be exported to the grid.
A - 3.3.8
Cats Indoor Program
To raise awareness of the need for responsible pet ownership a Council web page, brochure
and stickers were prepared. The brochure and stickers were distributed to local veterinary
surgeries and made available to the public through its information displays such as at the Flora
Festival and via service centres. Also the images were used on the side of local buses as giant
stickers as part of the Council education campaign. The two slogans used are shown below:
Figure 3.28 Images and slogans from the Cats Indoors Education Campaign
Biodiversity - Technical Report Page 76