The City of Melbourne, State and Federal Government and organisations can help you green your business. Co-operatively we are committed to creating an environmentally sustainable city and are continually striving to find ways to reduce our own energy consumption and associated greenhouse emissions. The following initiatives will assist you to green your business.
Paint the Town Green – A VECCI initiative
The Victorian Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (VECCI) Paint the Town Green initiative is aiming to reduce the overall carbon emissions of small and medium business in Victoria by 30 June 2011.
The success of Victoria's sustainability journey can only be achieved with the participation of the whole community. Getting involved in the sustainability of your business can have significant rewards for the environment and your bottom line.
Consider the impact your business is having on the environment by assessing your energy use, emissions, waste, water and other environmental impacts.
Through Paint the Town Green, we can provide support for your business to reduce emissions and plan for change.
Visit www.paintthetowngreen.com.au for more information.
Choose GreenPower
Carbon Down is offering Victorian businesses a free, independent GreenPower cost comparison service. We will find the right GreenPower plan for your company with no obligation.
Carbon Down will research all the available options from a range of energy retailers, compare these to what you use/pay now and provide you with all the relevant facts and figures to make your choice.
GreenPower is a government accreditation program for renewable energy sources such as sun, wind, water and waste. With GreenPower, you can continue to receive your electricity supply as normal, since green energy is fed into the existing electricity grid, replacing coal-based alternatives.
Visit Choose GreenPower to find out more.
Greening Your Building: A toolkit for improving asset performance
This is a guide for building owners and facility managers. It contains more than 70 management, maintenance and refurbishment initiatives designed to improve your building’s environmental performance while reducing operating costs.
Included in the toolkit is a summary of each initiative with information about potential benefits, risks, the process of implementation, payback periods and approximate costs as well as directions on where you can find more detailed information.
The initiatives are cross-indexed by their Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) categories. These categories align with the Green Building Council of Australia’s Green Star categories, allowing users to identify the impact of each improvement.
Whether you are retrofitting your entire building, replacing plant and equipment or simply looking for ways to incorporate green practices into ongoing maintenance and management, this toolkit is for you.
Greening Your Building (PDF, 870kb)
The toolkit has been developed in response to the Building Improvement Partnership Program that has been run by the City of Melbourne in partnership with Sustainability Victoria, AIRAH, and the Sustainable Melbourne Fund.
Greening Your Building: A Toolkit for Improving Asset Performance was produced with the assistance of Australian Institute of Refrigeration Air Conditioning and Heating (AIRAH).
City Switch Green Office
The CitySwitch Green Office program is a great way for businesses to improve office energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. See Green office for more information.
Thinking Green Power?
Carbon Down can assist Victorian small to medium businesses to make the change to government accredited green power. Talk to them about your usage and current power supplier. Once you have the information, facts and figures, you can make the decision to how much of your power usage will be consumed from renewable sources. Comparisons so far, in some cases have found businesses money can save money. Find out about how the green power cost comparison works.
Carbon Compass
Carbon Compass is a central online ‘hub’, for business related carbon, climate change and sustainability solutions. Businesses can share carbon, climate change and sustainability related information, resources and solutions that they have found useful. Find out more.
Reduce your event's environmental impact
The Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau has an Event Carbon Calculator. This is a handy tool to assist event managers and organisers to calculate the carbon footprint of an event.