Maroondah’s first environment workshop ‘All About Climate Change’ provided an introduction to the issues and challenges caused by climate change, as well as exploring potential solutions.

The workshop had a strong attendance and proved to be successful in discussing climate change. Tonight’s event served as the first part of this workshop and the second part, to be held next Tuesday evening, will examine potential solutions to climate change that can be undertaken at a local level.

I would like to thank members of the community who took the time to attend tonight’s workshop. A strong community response demonstrates that climate change is an issue within our community and one which requires a response from council.

It is anticipated that further climate change and environment events will be held throughout 2008 to ensure that Maroondah embraces urban sustainability.

As part of the proceedings, I had the pleasure of opening the workshop. Please continue reading this post to view a copy of the speech I delivered:

Good evening and welcome to the Climate Change and the Community workshop. This workshop is the first of two workshops focusing on climate change and in particular energy usage and our ecological footprint.

Tonight’s workshop is one of the outcomes from the Environment Forum which was held in May. Through this forum it was identified that climate change and energy efficiency were major concerns that needed to be addressed by council.

Tonight’s workshop entitled ‘All about Climate Change’ aims to inform you about climate change — the causes, issues and impacts. In learning about climate change it is also important to look at ways our environmental impact can be reduced. The ecological footprint is a way we can measure the impact we have on the planet’s resources and we will also be learning about this tonight.

Council needs to lead by example in adapting to our changing environment and some of our current initiatives include:

• Participating in the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program. We have achieved the required milestones, which include undertaking a baseline audit and developing an action plan, as well as reduction targets.
• Working with State and Federal Governments to manage the risks associated with climate change at a local level. Council’s water sustainability fund, is an example of this, where council is improving water conservation through a number of projects, some of which have received funding from either State or Federal Governments.
• The creation of a Sustainability Group to lead cultural change within the organisation. This will ensure that sustainability is at the forefront across all of council’s operations.
• Lastly, council is collecting data on its energy, water and fuel usage to allow us to measure council’s environmental impact and to undertake ways to reduce our own footprint.

Maroondah has engaged the National Centre for Sustainability, a part of Swinburne University, to present these workshops. They have arranged expert presenters to inform and challenge us so that we can reduce our ecological footprint.

Thank you once again for taking the time to attend tonight’s workshop. I encourage your feedback and participation so that we can continue to improve our level of sustainability within Maroondah and the wider community.