Environmentally Sustainable Design

Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) is the design philosophy of building our environment to minimise negative impacts on our lives and landscape and improve positive effects. This includes a broad range of objectives including energy, water, transport, waste, resilience, biodiversity, environment quality and education. ESD is a critical element of climate action, ensuring our infrastructure supports our communities and environment to reduce impacts to and from the climate.

The Shire adopted the ESD Policy for Council Buildings and Civil Works in 2020 and an updated version in 2022. The Policy requires that Shire buildings and civil works to be built sustainably. The Policy is implemented across all parts of the Capital Works and Renewals programs, some highlights are:

Ongoing development of tools, resources and guidelines to improve capital works planning, design and construction for all Shire buildings and civil works. This includes SECCCA’s BriefEzy matrix as well as evidence-based specifications for footpaths and roads, efficient electric appliances and systems, and biodiversity protection.
Sustainable buildings, such as Flinders Community Hub, Civic Reserve Soccer and Athletics Pavilion and Southern Peninsula Youth Hub. Designed to high standards, these buildings have passive design elements to minimise heating and cooling, efficient electric appliances, low carbon materials and stormwater treatment and retention systems.
Low carbon and recycled civil materials – The Shire is committed to designing and procuring sustainable materials, to reduce our carbon footprint, minimise waste sent to landfills and promote positive circular economy outcomes. Examples of this are requirements for recycled content in road asphalt and use of low-carbon materials in concrete footpaths, such as Tyrephalt at Bentons Rd, Plastiphalt at Wilkinson/Carmichael St and Polyrok at Harrap Rd Mt Martha
Maintenance contracts – The Shire is currently tendering for our next generation maintenance contract partners and have included a range of strong sustainability criteria to ensure that our investments and activities support our ESD policies and commitments.

The Shire is also supporting our community to build sustainably through a number of projects to introduce ESD into our Planning Scheme.

C232morn is an amendment to introduce an ESD local planning policy. In March 2023, following a panel hearing in late 2022, Council authorised the policy to be presented to the Minister for Planning. The policy is expected to be considered for amendment in mid 2023.
The Shire has joined 23 Victorian Councils and signed up to Stage 2 of the Council Alliance for Sustainable Built Environment (CASBE)’s Elevating ESD Targets Project, which seeks to pursue resilient and zero-carbon buildings and urban places. The Shire is a member Council of CASBE.
C246morn amends the planning scheme to introduce a new ESD planning control. This is part of Stage 2 of the Elevating ESD Targets Project.
In March 2021, Council made a submission to the State Government’s ESD Roadmap to support the inclusion of ESD objectives into the planning scheme. The first stage of the ESD Roadmap was gazetted as VC216 on 10 June 2022.