The Local Government emissions trading scheme, the first of its kind for local government in Australia, begins with twelve NSW councils, including Randwick City Council, signed up.
The councils confirmed for the voluntary emissions trading scheme include three regional councils (Cootamundra, Cowra and Kiama), and nine councils from the Sydney metropolitan area (Randwick, Lane Cove, Auburn, Ashfield, Leichhardt, Canada Bay, Marrickville, Sydney and Willoughby).
The Local Government emissions trading scheme is a five-year trial intended to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of participating councils by four per cent each year, or 20 per cent over the full period of the trial.
Establishing such a scheme was the winning entry of a local Coogee resident, who submitted the idea to Randwick's Best GRIN (Green Innovation) competition in 2006.
Randwick City Council has been working to develop and implement the scheme known as LGETS, since September 2006. All councils across NSW were invited to participate in the Scheme.
The Local Government emissions trading scheme began on 1 March 2008. Randwick City Council hopes other councils across the state will join up to the scheme to help address this extremely important environmental issue.
Like many Councils, Randwick has already implemented a number of initiatives to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This scheme takes these efforts one stage further by allowing local Councils to trade their emission reductions among themselves to help ensure set reduction targets are met.
LGETS was the recipient of the 2009 UNAA Awards, Meeting the Greenhouse challenge.