How to Get to Net Zero at Least Cost for Councils
That's OK.
Good morning, everybody.
And good morning to my special guest star today, Barbara Albert from 100% renewables who is joining us? A pretty interesting agenda.
I think what we're going to step through today, Barbara, and we'll do a few introductions and the formalities and so forth.
But it is a great honour for me and the great pleasure as well.
To introduce some work that 100% renewables has been compiling over the last couple of months, building on the work of a few years now the councils at local government.
And in fact, all levels of government net zero leaderboard would, which is a great opportunity to showcase some of the achievements of, uh, and the accomplishments of local government, which is what we're going to focus on today, Um, and to talk about what people are doing, how they're going to, how they can get to net zero, what they need to do to get to net zero.
Um, and perhaps where some of the low hanging fruit is for those organisations.
Um, well, Barbara and I will try and talk for not more than 30 minutes.
We'll try and control ourselves constrain ourselves.
We'll introduce a couple of gifts to you guys for your time and your attention today, some some things artefacts you can take with you and then we'll move into a Q and A session.
So I might as watching the numbers still grow.
I think I'll start moving into the the intros and the topic as soon as I remember how to drive in my computer.
Great.
Okay, let's let's start with acknowledgement of country.
And it is in the spirit of reconciliation that energy action and 100% renewables acknowledged the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.
We pay our respects to their elders past and present, and extend that respect to all aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples.
Today I'm here in Sydney on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.
Right, Okay.
And now to formally introduce our guests today, Barbara Albert Co-CEO of 100% renewables and author of, uh, an award winning book, the Energy Energy Unlimited, and we're going to talk today about another paper.
She has recently authored the Net zero leaderboard for councils and the government.
Barbara is the co CEO 100% renewables, a consultancy which is specialist in developing net zero pathways for Australian organisations.
She is a great promoter of the cause of Net zero, a fantastic speaker as you all discover today.
And if you haven't already done so, please check out 100% renewables blog.
Check out the YouTube channel and check out Barbra's podcast as well.
What a fantastic introductions.
Thanks so much.
And it's my great pleasure to introduce Edwards.
It has more than two decades of experience.
He is very much experienced in all all things energy.
Um, and he launched a reverse auction into the Australian market place in the year 2000.
He's since built businesses and products in energy, data management, efficiency and renewable energy projects.
Uh huh.
Thank you very much, Barbara, And look just a little bit more about energy action.
I won't bore you with all this detail.
I'll allow you guys to read it.
But for those in our audience who aren't familiar with energy action and what we do building on that reverse auction concept which we piloted 20 years ago when we're humble little dot com business We see our mission and we always have is making energy cheaper, more simple than cleaner for Australian businesses we're all about.
And it's with great pleasure that we work closely with 100% renewables to help organisations on their pathway to that.
Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I just put on screen some of the just lost Barbara for a moment.
Good.
Barbara, welcome back.
Uh, put on screen the company bio of 100% renewables.
It's a company with a big footprint in the local government sector.
And there's some fantastic work in that space.
Mute and my back Go back.
I don't know what happened there.
That was weird.
Anyway, I am back, and I think we're on the introduction of 100% renewables.
Is that right? Awesome.
So I probably most of you would know us being from cancer because we do so much work with cancers and communities.
But as it might have mentioned, we are experts in the development of net zero strategies.
So mostly this relates to pathways, um, developing solar feasibility studies, energy efficiency, business cases and supply chain emission opportunities.
And we pride ourselves on seeing a future where all organisations will be power from renewables and have net zero emissions.
And that's the division.
We're working towards you as an organisation and also really proud to be in partnership with energy action.
Thank you, Barbara.
Thank you, Barbara.
We to work, do work very closely with councils and have for a number of years just to get kick off this session and to frame the leaderboard which we're about to work through.
I just I just want to make the point, um how important it is for local governments to be addressing climate change climate.
Local governments really are on the front line of climate change.
Their populations are directly exposed and certainly, in the immediate term, the narrative of heat inundation and I guess economic dislocation to that comes with climate change is one that is felt at a local level most acutely.
And in the face of this challenge, it's councils councils right across Australia as well See that are making and planning investments in mitigation and or adaption, and they really need to be it's really critical.
It's councils to that are at the forefront of the real technology response to climate change, they're demonstrating and we see this in the work that we're doing.
They're demonstrating leadership by setting the standard for development applications for renewable generation construction and supporting that sector, fostering renewable energy zones and more and more, attracting employers with cleaner business models.
Building up industrial parks and precincts that will support a new business models and a move that we saw cemented by Sydney City earlier this week, I believe, insisting on net zero development controls for commercial buildings.
Fantastic step, Sydney City.
It's councils to that are the custodians of so many essential civic and sanitation services that can make a significant impact on the carbon economy of this country.
Be that their scope one Also three waste collection and treatment addressing the embodied carbon of commercial buildings and other buildings and addressing their own operations as well.
And we see so many councils grabbing the leadership opportunity, presenting to them presented to them, changing their own operations and being so visible and engaged with their local communities.
And we see them engaging with the community with community in a way that other levels of government is simply not able to do.
And anybody here in New South Wales would have just come through the council elections on the weekend and heard the word grassroots again and again and again.
But it's this grassroots function, the council's perform, that gives them such potential to apply strategic investment to promote changes of behaviour.
There's some great initiatives that we've seen around promoting recycling and the circular economy here in our part of the country and certainly right across the country.
Other initiatives promoting access to Selma and other technologies.
So it's entirely appropriate that we're gathering today's to celebrate the progress of the local government sector across the country and showcase some of the commitments so that we can all move forward faster.
And it's with this purpose in mind, Barbara, that I want to congratulate you and the entire team.
That 100% renewables for the production of this fantastic resource the local government net zero leaderboard 2021.
So, yeah, I'm going to hand over screen share screen to you, Barbara, um, and ask you the big question.
What do you see when you review the data? The commitments data? All right.
Um, that's good.
So just checking.
Can you all see my screen with this blog post here.
Yeah, Good.
Awesome.
All right.
So I am super excited to share with you hot off the press leaderboard for commitments in terms of climate change in terms of net zero commitments, ambitious renewable energy commitments made by all levels of government.
And of course, the focus is going to be local government today And the communities I'm really excited to share with you just what these commitments are and how they have developed over time.
So this blog post here went live today, today morning.
So a blog post is very, very long and it showcases pretty much everything you need to know in terms of ambition for local government.
So here is some information of background information.
People can download the paper.
You'll get it as part of being part of this um, this weapon now today.
But let's overlook it starts with the leader Board of States and territories Since October this year, Finally, the Commonwealth government has committed to Nigeria by 2050 came a bit late to the party because, uh, before, of course, every other state and territory had committed to Nigeria by 2050 already.
So here is an is an example of one of the maps our team has produced, and we have these for every state as well and local governments in every state.
So this year shows all the commitments by states and territories in Australia, and we also have a leader Board of Capital Cities.
So just focusing in on capital cities.
We have all the commitments here across emissions across renewables, all listed here now because we've got an audience of local governments.
Of course, the most interesting commitments are the ones of local governments that they've made for the operations, but also commitments that have been made on behalf of the community or by communities themselves.
So I can tell you that out of 537 Australian local governments that we have 114 have now made ambitious commitments.
So this number covers 21% of all councils and out of all the councils that we've released there were listing here in this blog post.
90 councils have now committed to net zero emissions before 2050 So to make it onto this list, councils have to commit to something that's more ambitious than state and territory goals for 2050.
Not good enough.
So here we're counting mostly the ones that are more ambitious than the to about 2050.
So here you can see the percentages.
But of course, just looking at the number of council doesn't give you the full picture.
So and even more important, metric is to look at these commitments in terms of population that is covered.
So if we add this dimension, you can see that the ACT.
If you hover your mouse over this interactive breath, you can see that yourself once you go to the blockbuster.
The ACT, of course, covers 100% of the city's population with its really ambitious commitments.
This is followed by Victoria can see that the dark of the blue, the more population is covered by ambitious commitments.
So Victoria, 73% of all the population, is covered by really ambitious targets and also Queensland.
Um, there's still some work to do by the other states, but this is what the leaderboard currently looks like, right? So a table describing the very same thing.
But let's have a look how local government commitments have changed from 2017 to 2021.
Now we've been officially tracking.
I'm just going to make this a bit bigger.
We've been officially tracking ambitious commitments since we developed the very 1st 100% renewable energy plan for Lismore Council, which we did in 2014 2015.
But we officially attracted since 2017, which is, uh, when the timeline here starts and you can see just how commitments have grown over time.
So that's for council operations.
And similarly, we have also tracked the commitments of communities so communities themselves but also councils on behalf of their communities.
So exciting.
It's an exciting development that both these numbers are growing and keep growing.
So just this year, from December last year, too to today we've had 50 additional councils that joined the list.
So really excited about that, Right? Barbara? That's 50 councils in the last how long? In 12 months.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, it's a really rapid increases.
It is a rapid increase.
But I think it's to do with the release of the most recent IPCC report that really drive in the message that we have to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions and I think now Australia is ready.
I was reflecting on this for another presentation I gave when I spoke about my story.
It really has changed in the last 10 years.
Um, I think now there's so much more attention and people know that we have to do something about it because they can feel the impact, just like you described earlier of climate change is happening.
It's not some distant thing in the future.
It's here already.
Cancers can feel it.
They're doing something about it.
They're so close to their communities and their acting.
You can try them in their bar register.
I guess violently agree with you.
Actually, we can see the same thing in the energy markets and likewise, I've got that perspective over time, what we've seen 15 years now, the climate, what was right in politics, but that I guess there's a really strong awareness stronger than anything I've ever seen, that it is the responsibility of individuals of consumers and businesses of organisations like council as well as government to to really drive the response to climate change.
Absolutely true.
It's all a cooperative effort.
No single entity can do it by themselves, but we all have to act together to tackle this massive big problem that we're facing as a society.
So here's the exciting leaderboards, a list of ambitious commitments by local governments in the blog post.
We've got this table here, which is currently restricted to 10 interest.
But you can see a list of all the councils across the states, and we've divided them up into renewable energy commitments and carbon commitments.
And if you scroll and you hit the next batter, Newt can just see all the councils across Australia that have made ambitious commitments and also what these commitments are, how they phrased it.
Target dates, etcetera.
So it's a fantastic resource.
And in the pdf that will be sent to you after this webinar you have the fullest, you know, 44 page report that shows all these commitments.
Can I just jump in there? Barbara again, I can see you're tracking renewable commitments and carbon neutral commitments.
That's right.
They represent different things to you.
Yes, absolutely.
So carbon commitments which relate relate to greenhouse gas emissions.
So it's a different angle, as opposed to looking at just just energy is the energy is a subset of your carbon footprint.
But of course it's hugely important to deal with the energy for because even though it's classified as an indirect emission source, it's still very much under your control and so much can be done about it.
We've had announcement announcements lately across all of Australia, Really.
Some have been officially announced them haven't.
But for instance, in in Western Australia, um, I think between I think more than 20 councils have now committed to 100% renewables, we're going to see a similar announcement for the Sydney region.
Um and of course, there's, uh, the memory project in in down in Victoria.
So there's there's lots and lots of renewable energy commitments that are coming through, which are going to be announced very soon, So it's a big difference between, like the carbon footprint and the energy footprint.
I've got examples later on because for some regional councils, especially the ones that have landfill um, big big landfills, their carbon footprint is huge.
Firstly, but also half of the carbon footprint could be just from landfill emissions, so there's a big difference between carbon emissions and energy commitments, but really important to have a commitment for renewables because that just really demonstrates leadership becomes just set some aspirational target to be net zero by some target date.
You have to have concrete plans.
And he was co two.
Emissions and electricity for street lighting are really important to shift those to renewable.
So that's why we track both great, great.
Thank you were about to move into some of the demographic data that you've collected.
Yeah, that's right.
So here, probably most people that I just have to know these maps because these maps are being used by so many councils.
So these maps, I was just showing exactly how many councils have committed to ambitious targets.
And it used to be that we had the Sydney region here as well.
But we just ran out of space and knew this was going to happen.
And this is the time that we had to split it.
So in this situation of our blog post, we're now splitting into regional and metro councils.
So that's just Sydney Greater Sydney, and that's New South Wales metro similarly for Victoria.
Because there were so many commitments in Victoria, New South Wales, we split it into Victorian regionals and Victorian metro councils and then, of course, hips.
More commitments in Queensland.
Which is great to see, of course, UH, concentration here in South East Queensland, covering a big part of Queensland's population.
Huge um, South Australia.
Many more commitments of those South Australia's pretty good when it comes to renewables.
Um, they had coverage of 100% renewables through the production of like from the solar farms, for instance, lots of commitments by Western Australia Council.
So so many more as opposed to last year.
And as I mentioned, Big Drive also to switch to renewables, purchasing Northern Territory and Tasmania.
And we also have the list of ambitious commitments by communities a similarly very long table feel free to scroll through.
But independent. It's all listed and then maps again of commitments by communities.
Here are examples of New South Wales and Victoria, and even further down, um, if you keep scrolling, you'll also see all the memberships of council.
So, for instance, councils that have declared a climate emergency, it's an important step to declare an emergency climate emergency.
It doesn't always get through with counsellors, but a really important step to take the list of exactly have to scroll again of how many councils have declared a climate emergencies memberships of the CPP programme, which is fantastic and can highly recommend it.
And then it just continues with Chico membership, etc. and Italy and cities raised to zero, um, and councils that are already carbon neutral under climate active, wanting.
Yes.
So, uh, that here is, uh it's just to show you the whole of the press leaderboard of councils.
Now, having talked about how councils have made it really ambitious commitments, it's important to show how councils can achieve ambitious commitments.
So I know I'm probably gonna I'm running a bit over time anti, so maybe I'll keep it as brief as possible.
So let me just see him back the you've got the screen.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I'll try to keep it as quick as possible.
Sorry.
So we've got here an example of a council image with landfill emission.
I mentioned previously that when councils have landfill sites, it just distorts pretty much everything because at least half of, uh, the footprint of a council makes up landfill emissions.
Um, and if we look at how a council like this can decrease their emissions to go to zero Pretty much looks like this business as usual projection.
Luckily, the grid is getting greener, and there's lots of things they can do.
Um, in terms of reducing the electricity consumption, changing the fleet to electric, working on the street lighting very important renewable energy purchasing I think we saw on your pie chart is about 6% of this type of council A council with landfill.
In this particular case, Yeah, it depends on how large the landfill is.
Really? So here we've got increased, flaring and forget make up a big proportion.
Of course, because that's what this particular council has to do to get in at zero.
And of course, at the end, it has the fogo.
That's food and organics.
Yes, that's right.
Food.
Organics processing could also be a waste to energy projects.
Um, so for this particular cancer, But looking at a metro council here, I've got another example, uh, of a climate active carbon footprint of a council.
So that means that lots and lots of emission sources are entering the carbon footprint.
Not all councils currently measure there.
Full carbon footprints are.
Most tend to still focus on their innermost scope one and scope to being fleet being electricity consumption but, of course, and street lighting.
But of course, there's so much in the scope threes.
There's travel, there's employee commute.
There's all the goods and services that accounts of purchases.
So if you do your full carbon footprint, this is what it could look like.
And it's super easy to start with.
Scope two emissions because you can be more energy efficient.
You can put solar panels on your roof, and you can switch your supply to renewables next up.
Then Barbara.
That it can be super easy can be really complicated.
Mhm, yeah, but my messages scope to start with this co two abatement because it's within grasp.
We have the solutions for scope one.
If it's mostly fleet solutions, are emerging electric vehicles, reduction in fleet, lots of things that can be done and that councils are already working on.
And then, of course, scope three emissions all in the value chain that's going to be the next big area.
So just to quickly finish of my my part because I know I'm going over time was always talked too much as I mentioned it was to you earlier.
So here we have a B two b EU emissions projection for a metro council quit.
Decarbonization helps with reducing emissions automatically.
And then the fleet initiatives switching from natural gas to electricity upgrading page marketing, international air conditioning, street lighting change over to led huge impact.
Um, led upgrades solar on roofs and battery storage.
And here, renewable energy purchasing big change over for this particular council in 23.
And also for this council, they are going carbon neutral from, um, next year.
So they are going to purchase offsets right away, be carbon neutral right away and going to maintain this going forward.
And here I probably have to stop because otherwise I'll take up the whole time.
I'm going to stop sharing, and I'm handing over back to you, Ed, have I still got you? Um, not whether it's me or whether we've lost in.
Mm hmm.
We can hear Barbara's good, Ed.
Okay, um, now he's got the same problem that I had earlier because unexpectedly, zoom quit on me, and then we connected me.
So what to do now? Um, let's see if I have its presentation.
Oh, he's back.
Perfect timing.
It looks like, uh, what happened to me earlier just happened to you.
Okay, well, maybe I'll take a few questions until it's back.
Okay.
Um, okay.
So what? Mm.
Are you back? Mhm.
Yeah, but, um, I tell you, I just probably my screen back up to address it.
I've lost it, but, uh, have you seen since the elections? Um, any counsellors making new commitments towards, um, renewable energy and carbon commitments is after the elections, the impact of the elections in New South Wales.
Mm.
So you're counsellors and the makeup of the council have big impacts on on targets on an ambition level and the kind of money that's being made available to reduce emissions.
So, yes, a The makeup of council is hugely important.
And I don't know about the most recent election, because that's still the results are coming through, But yes, I've had instances in the past where, for instance, um, climate emergency declaration was made, which was then taken back, but it happens very, very rarely.
So usually the steps are in the right direction, meaning that more commitments and more declarations are being made.
But yes, of course, it occasionally happens with new councillors coming in.
Yeah, right.
Okay.
Thank you.
There's a couple other questions around the pathways and a mission scope and so forth.
Um, but there's a couple of other things that we just wanted to draw out the presentations.
We might see if we can leave those questions to the end and come back.
Um, look, I I just wanted to draw out that in both the scenarios that you presented their scope two emissions grid, electricity usage plus and the street lighting will be that in scope to or in scope three is a significant contributor to emissions for councils.
And it's something that councils can and indeed moving on as you've shown us through any discussion of the leader board there, um, one question that sort of comes up and around is from time to time is carbon neutral versus renewables.
Do you have views on that? Barbara? Councils should be thinking through their options there.
Yeah.
So if there is a difference between carbon neutral energy and switching to renewables, so you're switching to renewables is probably the easy one to understand because you either self generate from renewables, like putting solar panels on your roof.
Or you switch your supply of electricity to renewables, making sure that what you buy in terms of electricity comes from renewable sources.
So from wind from solar from batteries, whereas if you purchase carbon neutral electricity, the electricity will still come from from fossil fuel power plants.
But your retailer, for instance, would have offset the associated emissions by purchasing offsets.
This is a bit out of your control because you don't know exactly what opposites have been purchased, but it is, um, carbon neutral electricity, so it allows you to reduce your scope to and your scope three emissions from street lighting to take that to zero because you're purchasing carbon neutral electricity.
But it doesn't mean that it's coming from renewable sources.
Right, Okay.
And look just to wrap that up a little bit, um, as energy notes, we we think about this in terms of renewable energy will, and I think you said it very clearly.
Well, actually reduced to your emission footprint.
Um, and that's that's how the greenhouse gas protocol the space targets climate active the whole reporting standards.
Look at an energy renewable energy purchase.
They will look at that and say right by the market based rules.
It's a legitimate reduction of emissions, direct reduction of your emissions.
Did you did you ask a question? Because I think it was my Internet or yours.
If there was a question, I missed it.
Oh, dear.
No, I didn't ask a question.
I was making a clear statement about renewable has been a reduction and offsets being precisely that.
An offset of emissions, not a reduction in emissions by the standards, the reporting right.
And it's an important distinction if you do want credibility in your reporting and so forth.
It's important if you want to follow the hierarchy of action prescribed by the global Greenhouse gas protocol, et cetera.
But once you've made that decision, well, look, the decision is still open, and we support some customers pursue carbon neutral energy, perhaps on a pathway towards renewable electricity.
It does tend to be cheaper, Um, and that perhaps is related to the, uh, the liquidity of the market and the quality of the certificates underpinning it, as you alluded to earlier Barbara.
But then, once our clients move into an appetite for renewable energy.
There are a couple of different options which we just wanted to throw some light on today, Um, one.
And we're talking about energy purchases from the grid here, Um, there's a power purchase agreements being sleeved or direct.
And there are a standard of market standard which we promote out to energy buyers, which is the renewable energy supply agreement.
Um, just to try and draw out, uh, some of that Can you see my screen there? Okay.
Barbara? Yes.
Great.
Okay, So the power purchase agreements, they're they're powerful tools, and we have seen them really contribute additional projects and drive that quality of addition al itty under the greenhouse gas protocol rules and concepts, um, they tend, however, to be long term commitments, which can be good.
Or it can be a weakness for, uh, councils that aren't willing to take on long term exposure to a very complex energy market here in this country.
Um, they can, of course, give you a direct link to a generation source as well.
We've been supporting clients into PPS for a number of years.
We did high profile one back in 2018 with the University of New South Wales, one of the It was a very complex and elongated process we and NSW spent a lot of time in.
Very nice lawyer's office is to get the deal done and then, indeed, the project itself.
It made headlines between 2000 and 18, and when it was finally commissioned in about this time last year, December 2020 it's struggled with funding for a little while.
It's went up and down the risk radar for a while before it finally came, came Good.
Um, and you, NSW we've got a great contract and they're very happy with it.
Uh, and indeed a number of councils, As you move into earlier as well, Barbara have entered into PPH arrangements to solve the challenge of resolve the challenge of getting into renewable agreements.
An alternative, as I mentioned that we work hard with is the renewable energy supply agreement.
Um, it works a little differently.
It's a much simpler piece of paper.
It's written on standard energy supply agreements for councils and other energy buyers with the retailers that are active in the energy market and have been for a few decades now.
And it's a firm price both for energy and for the renewable certificates.
What's really special? What we think is cool about Theresa is we've written provenance into that standard, so it gives you the direct ties to a nominated generation source and method for L.
G C Surrender and reporting that be that green power or other methods? Um, it offers a lot of flexibility, given that we are working with retailers who are both committing to new projects and have stock of projects in their generation fleet.
We can work to very short time tables to secure firm prices, and we can secure secure firm prices for energy and renewables for 3 to 5 years.
Through this process, we've got a lot of competitive tension.
We ran a process just recently, which we'll talk about in the next slide, where we had five retailers bidding for the right to supply a council.
But we've had up to eight retailers bidding on either existing or new generation stock, and we were able being able to offer our buyers short lead times and move them very quickly to market at low costs for their energy.
Um, and then I guess the final point to draw out is that it does relative to a corporate PPA.
It is able to cut admin costs and take a whole lot of risk that a PPA
Puts on an energy buyer place that on the energy retailers and move our energy buyers into energy contracts quickly.
Yeah, we're very proud.
I'll just quickly grab the microphone or hold the microphone Barbara, to talk about, uh, an event we conducted in a process we concluded last month.
Byron Shire Council Byron Shire, uh, sees their scope two emissions as a significant contributor to their carbon footprint, and they've been working on them for a couple of years.
We ran a process to secure them 100% renewable energy for their large sites as well as their small sites, and to look at them an overall reduction in their energy costs as well from the contracts they had in place, some of the key things that I just like to draw out.
As I mentioned, we had five bidders bidding for the right to supply so lots of competitive tension to drive the market.
Um, Byron Shire could not suffer long lead times they have their own generation projects coming on board.
They needed effectively a bridging contract for a few years.
We were able to get them a contract last month which will start in very early 2022 run for a medium term for them.
Um and we were able to offer Byron Shire a lot of flexibility.
There was not a lot of friction in doing the deal.
It happened very quickly.
The council elections in New South Wales became a factor.
Our suppliers worked with them.
We got the deal done and the final contract was just secured in the wake of the elections.
So the end result was a very high quality outcome.
It was a firm price for electricity and renewable power certificates with provenance on the source of the generation great price.
And I think we were able to show them great care through the process as well.
With the clock, the pressure of the clock on me, I'll just talk quickly to about Yeah, that research model itself is adaptable, has indeed our people A is to buying groups and we do work with buying groups in the research space, and we do on carbon neutral electricity as well.
And the slider put up is just showcasing some work we did for a group of strata, uh, owners strata owners here across Sydney Very recently, Um, they didn't have the strong driver across their exact committees for renewable output renewable energy at this point.
But there was a strong appetite for putting a line in the sand and showing some sort of gesture to the residents and stakeholders of their buildings.
So carbon neutral electricity again, which we were able to deliver through to that group very, very conveniently and very cheaply was a really good outcome for that group as well.
Okay, I could elaborate further on on group buying, but I think we're kind of running out of time.
I'd really like to move into the Q and A and the chat we just put on screen here.
Barbara, some of the artefacts which we will be sending through to all the members of our audience today as a way of just thanking you for our participation.
This presentation will be made available to you and we will also very happily take further calls.
Energy Action is intending to get in touch with all of you.
We'd love to offer you a complimentary energy bill.
Health check.
My colleague Lauren will be making calls out to local government to councils over the next few days to engage with you and just see if we can reflect with you on where you're at as an organisation in respect of your your energy purchasing and what we can do to help move you into renewable energy more quickly and help you address your scope.
Two emissions.
Um and also, I guess, just to feel how we can connect you back to Barbara as well, of course, to put you in touch with an organisation that can help you design your net zero strategy and start to make commitments that you can be proud of.
So to that end, we'll make available 100% renewables report and give you access to the blogs.
We've got a great case study written up about the Byron Shire Council.
Many thanks to the people of Byron shower for their support to put that together.
And we've just got some information, too, about the renewable energy supply agreement, the research that I just described, which we can help you with to get renewable power sooner.
Yeah, so I can see Barbara.
You're patiently waiting for me to stop talking.
We're coming up almost right on time.
But maybe we'll take 11 question combined one.
So some of the questions related around the fact that there are, of course, councils that are resource constrained, especially the regional ones they might not have.
The council might be conservative.
They might not have human resources to develop a plan and to implement all those projects, and they might not have the money to do so.
So what should these regional councils do? That our resource constraint can still do something, even though they might not have ambitious targets.
And the answer is yes, of course.
In Mohammed, you summarise it fairly, fairly well here.
So it's energy efficiency measures measures its solar PV in roots.
These all come with a financial business case, so it doesn't necessarily just have to tick the box of climate action because it just stands on its own two ft.
It's cost effective.
In most cases, it just should be done.
And so it's easy from a council law perspective just to push that through and just to get going with that anyway.
And then, of course, for those resource constrained councils, grants, grants, grants.
So of course, they're grants opportunities come up all the time.
If you have projects that are shovel ready.
If you've got the business case is ready to go for the grant application.
That's a really fantastic way for councils to harness those opportunities, Um and, uh, and yeah, and to become a member of the Cities Power Partnership because you will get access to all sorts of resources.
They do a fantastic job at marketing, and they can help you with bringing your stakeholders on board, being beat UT or Mannix or be the counsellors.
So certainly there's help there as well.
And I think I'll stop talking because it's not for you.
Let me take another question.
But pretty much we're on time.
Great.
Okay, well, look, there is one more question here, Barbara, which I'm interested in the embodied emissions question from Trevor about construction, concrete, steel.
So I removal et cetera.
Um, do you do that scope in your study centre? So, look, this is an emerging area when it comes to construction and embodied emissions, at least for councils.
Of course, it has always been on the radar for for developers.
But looking at it from the perspective of councils, the most important thing in terms of construction that the council focuses on is roads.
So my recommendation is always definitely include the Asheville, this cement that's going into road construction because its core council business but an emerging field is taking care of embodied emissions in new assets construction, new Civic centre, new library, whatever it is.
Of course, there are embodied emissions in building that, but only a few councils very few councils are currently looking at that.
But that's not to say that it's not an emerging field, so more and more councils are thinking of how can we include that? And they might start with just looking at expenditure in initially and to translate that intermissions.
But of course, as this area matures more, they are going to look at quantities of materials, which then requires a cooperation with your suppliers because you need to get a bill of quantity and translate that into emissions.
So it's an emerging field, really exciting.
It is starting to happen.
It is yeah, That's right.
And look, we're doing a whole lot of data collection for organisations, particularly developers and construction companies who are tackling this in buildings.
Um, there's a path to go, I think, to to ensure that the data collection methods accurately reflect what's happening.
But its people are on that path and we're on the journey with them.
Yeah, so look, that's I think we've hit time.
We're over time.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Barbara.
Um, and congratulations not only to 100% renewables, but to the entire local government sector on on really driving some fantastic change and showing other levels of government and the rest of Australia how it's done and how it can be done.
And we're very grateful.
Grateful to you, Barbara for Canadian was fantastic report.
Many thanks to everybody for participating and joining with us today.
And if you do need help to get on that nets or a journey, please reach out to energy action or 100% renewables.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me it.
Okay.
And I might say farewell.
