The strategy was developed in partnership with a stakeholder reference group, made up of community representatives and partner organisations.
Key initiatives from the strategy include:
- Reducing Council’s energy and water consumption;
- Attracting innovative, renewable or alternate energy industries to the region;
- Embedding sustainability into Council’s operations and functions;
- Increasing partnership opportunities with agencies and the community to achieve environmental sustainability outcomes;
- Improve Council’s environmental reporting and communication with the community.
Greater Shepparton Mayor Jenny Houlihan said Council needs to be considering environmentally sustainable practices in all activities.
“Council needs to lead from the front by demonstrating to our community that we value our natural environments. We have such a wide range of environs around Greater Shepparton and we need to do what we can to preserve them for future generations.” Cr Houlihan said.
Greater Shepparton Environmental Sustainability Strategy Stakeholder Reference Committee Chairman Cr Kevin Ryan thanked everybody for their involvement in developing the strategy.
“When developing this strategy we had an emphasis on community consultation, so I would like to thank everyone who took the time to get involved,” Cr Ryan said.
“Council was very impressed with the quantity and quality of community submissions received during the Discussion Paper and Draft Strategy consultation phases.”
“I would also like to thank the members of the Strategy Stakeholder Reference Committee for their hard work and commitment to this project.”
Minister for Environment and Climate Change Ryan Smith welcomed the launch of the Environmental Sustainability Strategy.
“This is a great example of how the Victorian Government’s $6 million Victorian Adaptation and Sustainability Partnerships (VASP) is delivering real and tangible benefits for our environment and local communities,” Mr Smith said.
“Through this Victorian Government initiative, councils such as Greater Shepparton, are driving local action and building stronger partnership working between local and state governments, and businesses.
“I congratulate the Greater Shepparton City Council for their vision and look forward to seeing this strategy deliver benefits to our environment and the Shepparton community.”
The strategy will be officially launched on Thursday 18 September at 10.30am at the Connection, SPC Ardmona KidsTown. Kate Auty, former Victorian Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability is a special guest speaker. All members of the community are welcome to attend.
This project was funded by the Victorian Government under the Victorian Adaptation and Sustainability Partnership (VASP) – formerly known as the Victorian Local Sustainability Accord.
