16 Mar, 2016
Town Hall Welcomes Low Carbon Challenge
As the State Government’s partner in the quest to make Adelaide the world’s first carbon neutral city, City of Adelaide welcomes the Premier’s announcement today on South Australia’s Low Carbon Entrepreneur Prize.
The prize is on offer to the best and brightest minds here, interstate and across the globe to develop ideas to help our city confront the challenges of climate change.
In support of the Adelaide to Zero Carbon Challenge announced today, the Lord Mayor Martin Haese has pledged to provide a funding contribution as well as other specific resources. These include assistance to low carbon entrepreneurs to set up in the City of Adelaide through Enterprise Adelaide; and access to data gathered through smart city technology and other means to assist in the creation of applications and initiatives.
He said Adelaide needs the best entrepreneurial ideas to build a sustainable and greener economy for the city, help tackle climate change and reduce our carbon footprint.
“As the Premier said this morning, leading the way on the quest for carbon neutrality will help attract the next wave of investment in the low carbon economy,” said Martin.
“We have to be bold and innovative to help capture that investment, and this challenge to entrepreneurs, along with the significant funding on offer, can certainly help us with that goal.
“Acting on climate change now is an environmental and social imperative, and also an economic opportunity to be capitalised on, and it’s initiatives like these that really help.
“The city has already proven it can decouple greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth achieving a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions while increasing the city’s GDP by 28% and increasing residential growth by 27%, all since 2007.
“Decoupling is the holy grail of the sustainability movement and this initiative will further assist in growing the economy and driving down emissions,” he said.
City of Adelaide has already taken steps to reduce the city’s carbon footprint, including the roll out of the Sustainable City Incentives Scheme which provides grants of up to $5,000 for city residents and businesses to reduce carbon emissions. Grants include funding for Solar PV, battery storage systems and electric vehicle charging stations.
In addition to the energy and carbon emission reductions already achieved, plans are in place to install more solar systems to Council-owned buildings and to review procurement practices, including looking into the purchase of low-emission or electric fleet vehicles.
The start of the Adelaide to Zero Carbon Challenge follows the agreement between Council and the State Government last year to make Adelaide the world’s first carbon neutral city.
City of Adelaide’s aspiration to make its operations carbon neutral by 2020 and Adelaide the world’s first carbon neutral city was formally endorsed in the Carbon Neutral Strategy 2015-2025 announced just prior to the COP21 Climate Change Summit in Paris in December 2015.