Emissions in Boroondara

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Council emissions

We started recording our emissions in 2007–08. We call this our baseline year. In our baseline year, the emissions were 26,837 tonnes of CO2-e. Since then, we’ve checked greenhouse gas emissions across all the buildings and services we manage.

Due to ongoing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and environmental footprint, our emissions are now below 6,000 tonnes CO2-e. This is over 80% less than our baseline year and is more than the target set in Our Low Carbon Future Strategy, which was 30–40%.

Though this is a great effort, data shows that Council’s emissions make up less than 1% of emissions in Boroondara. We still have a big role to play in helping our community reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Boroondara.

Council emissions by source

Electricity in buildings makes up 46% of emissions.
Electricity for streetlights makes up 28% of emissions.
Gas for buildings makes up 10% of emissions.
Fuel for vehicles makes up 8% of emissions.
Indirect greenhouse gas emissions makes up 7% of emissions.
Taxi and air travel makes up less than 0.1% of emissions.
Refrigerants makes up 1% of emissions.

Renewable electricity doesn’t contribute to our total greenhouse emissions. As of 2021, all streetlight electricity is renewable. Over 90% of building electricity is also renewable.

A pie chart of Council’s corporate emissions by source

Council emissions over time

Since our baseline year in 2007–08, we’ve tracked our emissions each year. This includes actual emissions and emissions from vehicle use that have been offset by buying Australian Biodiversity Regeneration Offsets.

Greenhouse gas emissions from 2007 to 2014

Emissions (tonnes CO2)	2007–08	2008–09	2009–10	2010–11	2011–12	2012–13	2013–14
Actual emissions	26,509	26,316	26,803	26,130	25,156	23,865	23,605
Offset emissions		911	911	860	860	860	860
Total emissions	26,509	25,405	25,892	25,270	24,296	23,005	22,745

Greenhouse gas emissions from 2014 to 2021

Emissions (tonnes CO2)	2014–15	2015–16	2016–17	2017–18	2018–19	2019–20	2020–21
Actual emissions	23,396	22,625	22,483	22,825	21,787	17,308	4,500
Offset emissions	2,341	2,341	2,705	2,398	2,369	2,324	2,324
Total emissions	21,055	20,284	19,777	20,427	19,417	14,984	2,175

Community emissions

We sourced information about where emissions in Boroondara come from on the Snapshot database. This database is the most readily available information about community emissions in Victorian Local Government Areas.

The total emissions for Boroondara from January to December 2019 equals 1,804,000 tonnes of CO2-e.

Electricity makes up 58% of emissions in Boroondara.

Gas makes up 19% of emissions in Boroondara.

Transport makes up 20% of emissions in Boroondara.

Waste makes up 3% of emissions in Boroondara.

Other ways to reduce our carbon footprint

It’s important to recognise that our environmental impact is made up of more than our energy use. Decisions we all make every day contribute to our carbon footprint and impact the environment.

These include:

what we buy and use
how our food is produced
how we dispose of things
the materials used to build our homes, roads and cities.

When we develop any plan or action to support environmental sustainability, we need to think about all of these factors.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what the average individual greenhouse gas emissions in Boroondara is. To find out this information would be difficult, time consuming and expensive. However, we do know that there are many actions we can take as a Council and as a community to reduce our collective impact and create a sustainable, vibrant future.

A pie chart that shows community emissions by source