Moonee Valley City Council is calling on its residents to step up and take the Sustainable Suburbs challenge to help reduce its environmental footprint.
Sustainable Suburbs is a home retrofitting program involving seven councils in the Western Alliance for Greenhouse Action (WAGA). The WAGA region covers Melbourne’s west and includes Brimbank, Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Melton, Moonee Valley, Moorabool and Wyndham councils.
Sustainable Suburbs aims to assist WAGA councils to reach their goal of making 18,000 households more energy and water efficient in the next 12 months. The initiative provides discounted group purchasing prices on technologies and maximises State and Federal Government rebates.
Sustainable Suburbs makes it easy for residents to access the current free offers and rebates available through one central point rather than having to pull everything together from individual sources.
Moonee Valley Mayor Paul Guiliano said the program offers free lightglobe and showerhead exchanges; free home water, energy and waste assessments; and rebates and discounted prices for water tanks, solar panels and solar hot water systems.
“While assisting residents to save money, the program will reduce wastage and improve the performance of homes,” Councillor Guiliano said. “It also focuses on positive behaviour change and increasing the demand for green collar jobs.”
Information will be provided to link households to the Federal Green Loans program, which provides interest free loans of up to $10,000 for technologies and products that improve the environmental performance of a home.
“This is an immediate and real way the local community can band together to fight climate change,” Councillor Guiliano said.
The EnviroGroup (formerly Environment Shop) was chosen as the preferred supplier for Moonee Valley through a fair Registration of Interest process.
“Councils want their residents to reduce emissions, while residents want to save money and the environment by saving water and energy,” said Manager of the Sustainable Suburbs Program at EnviroGroup, Philip Werner. “We want to make it easy for residents to achieve this by offering a one stop sustainability solution.”
For further information visit www.sustainablesuburbs.com.au
