Environment Policy 2024

ENVIRONMENT POLICY

Melbourne has the potential to be the world’s most sustainable and resilient city, leading by example and supporting businesses and residents to commit to carbon neutral futures, as well as protecting our urban ecology and the natural resources on which it relies.

*Principles*
1	Melbourne and the planet are facing a climate and biodiversity emergency and must respond swiftly and justly, with a view to achieving net negative emissions and expanding habitat and biodiversity.
2	The City of Melbourne is well placed to be a regional, national and world leader on sustainability, and so should be.
3	Additional heating of the city (urban heat island effect) has enormous consequences for our community and must be reduced.
4	Planting more trees is among the most efficient means of cooling the city, and a diverse urban forest is essential for urban biodiversity.
5	Melbourne’s existing parklands are precious to humans, animals and biodiversity and must be protected and expanded.
6	Councils must contribute to a circular economy, aiming to divert all waste resources from landfill.
7	Water should be managed and conserved according to both environmental and human needs.
8	Buildings are Melbourne’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases and strategies to reduce their impact must be prioritised.
9	All Melbourne residents and businesses should be supported to reduce their consumption of resources, including energy, water and packaging, and reduce and divert food waste.
*Aims: Strengthen biodiversity*
1	Implement the City’s biodiversity, ecology, urban forest and open space strategies.
2	As these strategies are reviewed, ensure that they continue to take account of both the latest science and community sentiment.
3	Facilitate the increasingly expeditious replacement of monocultures with diverse native vegetation to combat disease and die-off, with a particular focus on planting diverse species of trees in closer intervals along city streets.
4	Defend the Master Plans for the City’s state-significant parks and gardens.
5	Pursue more biodiversity and water sensitive urban design projects throughout the municipality, including in all significant street upgrades and waterway flood mitigation projects in parks, and also by assisting private property owners to maintain existing vegetation and build new gardens, including vertical greening and roof gardens.
6	Reduce littering to limit pollution of our waterways and oceans by means of evidence-based strategies.
7	Protect especially critical habitat or remnant vegetation through planning controls, connect vegetation ecosystems of similar type, and promote the planting of complementary vegetation on private properties.
8	Seek the return to parkland and vegetation of disused spaces and unnecessary expanses of bitumen and concrete.
9	Allocate more spaces for community gardens.
10	Expand small-scale community composting, to minimise greenhouse gas emissions and maximise safety and quality of compost.
11	Work with local communities to promote and continually improve Council’s street gardens policy.
12	Support best practice research and citizen science in all of Council’s urban ecology programs.
13	Continue the annual biodiversity survey (Bioblitz) for the City of Melbourne in partnership with universities, the Museum and citizen science groups, increasing resident, business and visitor participation.
14	Support humane and sustainable means of controlling existing and potential threats to biodiversity from domestic and feral animals, weeds and pest species.
15	Apply controls to prohibit the presence of dogs and cats in environmentally sensitive places, and to confine domestic cats to homes (with reasonable exceptions).
16	Support landowners and community groups to conserve biodiversity and plant vegetation.
17	Invest in the Domain Gardens Arboretum, one of the benefits being the development of more arid and indigenous plants suited for Melbourne’s soils and changing climate.
18	Continue to support and learn from local, national and global networks of cities working towards sustainable, resilient urban environments – for all people, plants and animals.
*Aims: Transform energy use*
19	Support, create and actively promote programs to assist building owners and tenants to retrofit their properties and/or office spaces, including by implementing the Retrofit Melbourne plan in full.
20	Introduce programs, guidelines and planning scheme amendments to enable individual residents to have access to renewable energy.
21	Support and actively promote sustainability education and energy retrofitting programs for apartment buildings.
22	Provide sustainability tools and assistance, and advocate for residents living in rental properties and public housing.
23	Support programs that reduce the amount of residential waste that goes to landfill, such as repair cafes and businesses, swap meets, Spring Clean and garage sales, as well as waste charge variations that create incentives for waste reduction.
24	Help businesses to reduce use and safely dispose of materials that are toxic to humans and the environment.
25	Provide for the separation of collected residential waste into categories, to maximise the efficiency of post-collection recycling processes.
*Aims: Regulatory reform to address the climate crisis*
26	Amend the Melbourne Planning Scheme to require new developments to perform Urban Heat Island Effect reductions and retain or incorporate greening.
27	Provide support and incentives for climate change mitigation and adaptation in existing developments, such as white or green roofs, additional vegetation or less concrete and tarmac, and built or landscaped flood retardation, and amend planning controls to require these where possible and practical.
28	Replace the Energy, Waste and Water local policy in the Melbourne Planning Scheme with a strong statewide planning control with local schedules that guarantee that new development meets the high standards of sustainability required to address climate change.
29	Review older planning controls to identify and limit outcomes that contribute to the climate crisis.
*Aims: Lead by example*
30	Complete a retrofit of all council owned buildings to industry best practice against an agreed emissions reduction plan.
31	Implement procurement strategies, tender processes, case studies and other bulk purchasing processes across Council to increase sustainability in purchasing.
32	Maximise the City’s harvesting and use of grey water and conserve drinkable water.
33	Maximise recycling of waste resources from Council operations, and minimise waste sent to landfill.