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One city, many cultures: welcome Moonee Valley residents |
The City of Melbourne welcomed residents of Kensington and Flemington to the municipality on 1 July 2008 when responsibility for parts of these suburbs was transferred from the City of Moonee Valley. The boundary changes added 1.1 km2 to the municipality and significantly increased the number of Vietnamese and Somali-born residents in our already culturally diverse population.
The City of Melbourne’s new Multicultural Hub, opposite Queen Victoria Market, hosted more than 400 events and 10,000 visitors in its first full year of operation. Our libraries increased their collections of books, CDs and DVDs in community languages including Chinese, Hindi, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Korean.
Throughout the year, the City of Melbourne worked with its partners to support cultural celebrations such as Chinese New Year and NAIDOC Week. NAIDOC Week 2008 acknowledged Indigenous Australians with a flag raising ceremony at Melbourne Town Hall and events and exhibitions across the city.
Reconciliation Week 2009 was celebrated with two weeks of sold-out performances of Children’s Cheering Carpet – Saltbush, a collaboration between the City of Melbourne’s ArtPlay, Italian theatre company TPO and Indigenous artists. Grants from the City of Melbourne and the Myer Foundation enabled almost 1,000 children from Indigenous communities across Victoria to be part of the performances.
Melbourne’s diverse cultures were also celebrated through improvements to the city’s built environment. In 2008–09 the City of Melbourne and the Victorian Government invested more than $2 million to establish the three-year Cultural Precinct Improvement Program. The program promotes three main cultural precincts (Lonsdale Street Greek precinct, Lygon Street Italian precinct and Little Bourke Street’s Chinatown) and its first major milestone was reached in May 2009 with the unveiling of themed poles at Chinatown’s Spring Street gateway.
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Reducing our ecological footprint |
Energy
In July 2008 members of the public toured the City of Melbourne’s Council House 2 building as part of the first Melbourne Open House. The day demonstrated the energy efficient design features of Australia’s first six green star-rated commercial office building.
The City of Melbourne reduced its energy consumption by 8.6 per cent (10,009 Giga Joules) in 2008–09 over the previous year, largely due to reduced cooling needs during lower than average summer temperatures (February’s heatwave being an exception). Renewable sources provided more than one-fifth of this energy.
Figure 5. City of Melbourne’s total energy and renewable energy use2
Source: Billing data including the corporate database ‘Stark Essentials’.
2 Figures previously published for 2007–08 were estimates and adjustments have been made to reflect actual figures. Due to billing cycles 2008–09 includes some estimated calculation based on current and season trends. It will be adjusted for the 2009–10 report.
The City of Melbourne’s administration buildings, community buildings (such as child care centres), public lighting and corporate fleet consume electricity, natural gas and automotive fuel. Public lighting and buildings (for administrative and community use) consumed just under 90 per cent of total energy use, with electricity and natural gas being the main sources.
Table 6. City of Melbourne energy use by source
| Energy use by source |
2006-07 |
2007-083 |
2008-094 |
| Electricity (Victorian Grid) |
52,659 |
56,532 |
57,786 |
| Electricity (Renewable GreenPower) |
33,496 |
34,660 |
23,649 |
| Natural gas |
14,172 |
18,157 |
18,457 |
| LPG fuel |
193 |
431 |
492 |
| Unleaded petrol |
8,509 |
6,714 |
5,787 |
| Diesel |
0 |
118 |
432 |
| Total energy use (GJ) |
109,029 |
116,612 |
106,603 |
| Source: Billing data including the corporate database ‘Stark Essentials’. |
3 Figures previously published for this year were estimates and adjustments have been made to reflect actual figures.
4 Due to billing cycles this figure includes some estimated calculation based on current and season trends. It will be adjusted for the 2009–10 report.
Table 7. City of Melbourne energy use by activity
| Energy use by activity |
2006-07 |
2007-085 |
2008-096 |
| Administration – buildings |
19,388 |
22,356 |
20,211 |
| Administration – corporate fleet |
8,702 |
7,264 |
6,711 |
| Commercial – buildings |
2,988 |
3,434 |
2,556 |
| Community use – buildings |
22,407 |
23,977 |
22,208 |
| Community use – public lighting |
51,574 |
55,549 |
50,414 |
| Community use – miscellaneous |
3,970 |
4,032 |
4,503 |
| Total energy use (GJ) |
109,029 |
116,612 |
106,603 |
| Source: Billing data including the corporate database ‘Stark Essentials’. |
5 Figures previously published for 2007–08 were estimates and adjustments have been made to reflect actual figures.
6 Due to billing cycles 2008–09 figure includes some estimated calculation based on current and season trends. It will be adjusted for the 2009–10 annual report.
Greenhouse gas emissions
Climate science, community expectations and technology have changed significantly since the City of Melbourne’s 2002 commitment to zero net emissions by 2020. In response, Zero Net Emissions by 2020 – Update 2008 was adopted by the Melbourne City Council in September 2008.
The City of Melbourne’s total greenhouse gas emissions are down by almost one third compared to our 1997 baseline. An increase of 1.8 per cent in the 12 months to June 2009 was largely due to the reduced amount of renewable energy purchased through revised contractual arrangements. Figures from the last decade represent a significant downward trend. However, recent increases indicate the purchase of carbon offsets may need to be considered to achieve our target of 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2010.
Figure 6. City of Melbourne total direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions |
