2018/2019 One Planet Living report released

The City of Greater Bendigo has released its One Planet Living report for 2018/2019 which outlines the City’s environmental activities and reflects its commitment towards creating a liveable, sustainable region.

The One Planet Living Framework was first used by the City in 2016 when Council adopted the Greater Bendigo Environment Strategy.

Mayor Cr Margaret O’Rourke said the report provided an update on the City’s projects and actions based on the One Planet Living principles and demonstrated how this framework was embedded in Council’s strategies, programs and projects.  

“We are building One Planet thinking into everything we do – from the Economic Strategy to becoming the first UNESCO City of Gastronomy in Australia, from key projects such as GovHub, to teaching school children about sorting organic waste.” Cr O’Rourke said.

“We also acknowledge the wonderful contribution made by the many community groups, businesses and agencies that have partnered with the City to plan and deliver many of the outcomes highlighted in this report which are at the heart of One Planet Living in Bendigo.

“We are excited about the flagship projects the City has helped happen, such as the Power to the People leadership program, progress on Reimagining Bendigo Creek, our continued work on Water Sensitive Bendigo, the Greening Greater Bendigo Strategy and the ongoing focus on food through the development of a local Food Systems Strategy.”

Highlights from the report include the planting of 40,000 native plants for revegetation, the diversion from landfill of over 10,000 tonnes of organic matter and 10,000 tonnes of recycling.

“We know that we still have work to do to achieve our goals. We have seen a significant rise in emissions in the last financial year due to a rise in electricity and gas consumption from our buildings and facilities. Our challenge is to continue to provide wonderful facilities for our growing community and reduce our emissions to zero at the same time, which we know is possible.

“To practically meet this challenge, we have joined forces with over 40 other Local Governments to collectively buy all our electricity from renewable energy from 2021. This is the largest action we will take to reduce emissions and are working on transitioning all our energy needs to renewables in order to reach our 2036 zero carbon energy target.     

“We recognise that climate change and species decline pose significant challenges and risks to the health and wellbeing of the Greater Bendigo community, and communities around the world. We are working hard to understand and reduce these risks so that our community is strong, resilient and sustainable. The One Planet Living Framework is a great tool that supports us to do this.”

The report is organised according to the 10 One Planet Living principles:

For the full One Planet Living Report, please visit:

www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/About/One-Planet-Living