In February 2020 Council declared a climate emergency, committing to accelerate action on climate change and adopted our plan to take Stonnington towards a zero-carbon, climate-ready future later that year.

Our goal is to reduce emissions to zero by 2030 and ensure our city thrives in a changing climate, improving our environment, economy and the health and wellbeing of our community.

Our planning scheme addresses topics such as:

• Including sustainable initiatives and energy efficiency in new buildings
• Zero net emissions
• Embedding targets into Council planning and decision making, across all departments
• Tree planting

Stonnington is one of 31 Councils who have partnered with CASBE (Council Alliance for a Sustainable Built Environment) pursuing the Elevating ESD (Environmentally Sustainable Design) project. During 2021/2022, Councils have been putting together the strategic justification to support the amendment – which has been submitted to the Minister for Planning this month (July). The amendment seeks to:

• elevate the current ESD targets in the Planning Scheme applying to new development
• require developments have zero net emissions
• require new buildings to meet more stringent sustainability requirements