Keeping the Northern Beaches beautiful

We are excited to have hosted this years Keep Australia Beautiful NSW Sustainable Cities Awards here on the Beaches, after being crowned “Overall 2020 Sustainable Cities” award winners. As cream on the cake, we were acknowledged with some awards on the day too.  

Our Let’s Go ‘Swap and Go’ initiative took out the Circular Economy award. This initiative was born from the Northern Beaches businesses and community’s determination to continue with

reusable coffee cups in a COVID-safe manner, instilling this sustainable practice into their daily operations.

Council incentivised businesses to get started with a float of ‘swap and go’ coffee cups and provided COVID-safety advice to implement the systems.

Four ‘swap and go’ coffee cup providers and over 2,200 food and beverage businesses took part, with more than 30 community groups and social enterprises playing a role in the initiative.

The program doubled ‘swap and go’ cafes from 30 to more than 60, delivering 550 swap cups and saving an estimated 112,000 cups from landfill.

Council’s renewable energy actions that included the 100% renewable electricity Power Purchase Agreement and an on-site solar and community battery trial combined to win us a highly commended in the Renewable Energy award category.

As part of the plan, Council has met its corporate renewable electricity and emissions reductions early, saving approximately $2.3 million over seven years.

Council will also monitor the effectiveness of its first battery installation – a joint trial held with Ausgrid – to support increased renewable uptake in the short-term by making solar more affordable, and the long-term by developing future community battery projects in the form of a potential wide-scale rollout.

Val Southam, Chief Executive Officer of Keep Australia Beautiful NSW said the Keep Australia Beautiful NSW Sustainable Cities Awards Program celebrate projects that not only enhance the environment but improve the standard of living and well-being of urban communities.

“The Sustainable Cities Awards inspire councils and their communities to make a genuine and lasting contribution to their area, with partnerships between local authorities, businesses, community groups, schools and individuals,” Ms Southam said.

“On behalf of KAB NSW, I would like to extend our sincere thanks to the judging panel for their commitment to the unenviable task of selecting the winners and congratulate all who are profiled for their inspirational work.”