A streamlined process for environmental reporting has been implemented over the past 12 months at the City of South Perth. Management and Councillors now have access to regular environmental report cards that detail the current energy, water and greenhouse performance of the organisation.
“We want our organisation’s environmental performance to be reviewed and managed proactively, in exactly the same way we manage our financial performance,” said Wendy Patterson, Council’s Sustainability Coordinator.
“The key is to report environmental performance to management and Councillors routinely every quarter, so they see it as a normal part of the management process.”
Through its subscription to the Planet Footprint Scorekeeping Service, Council staff have been able to access easy to read reports, for energy, water and greenhouse performance, quickly and painlessly.
These reports are then fed into the quarterly reporting cycle, giving managers and Councillors the information they need to make decisions regarding these issues.
The benchmarking aspect of the Planet Footprint reports are of particular interest to managers, who can immediately see the performance of individual assets against the performance of similar assets in other councils nationally.
“By having Planet Footprint independently manage the monitoring and reporting process for Council, I have more time and money to allocate to improvement actions,” Wendy Patterson said. “And because the Planet Footprint reports and data are kept updated and made available on demand, I can quickly answer ad hoc questions that come my way, like ‘What is Council’s current level of greenhouse emissions?’.”
To read the full case study on the City of South Perth’s environmental reporting framework, visit www.planetfootprint.com/lgfocus
*Copy supplied by Planet Footprint
