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City of Wollongong
Resident Visitor Business

Sustainability at Council

We encourage everyone in our community to live sustainably. And that includes ourselves.

We’ve done a lot of work to make Council facilities and the way we work more sustainable.

Our Sustainable Wollongong 2030 Strategy PDF, 21002.46 KB explains what we're doing to protect our natural environment. This strategy is supported by our Climate Change Mitigation Plan PDF, 3344.88 KB

We’ve been working hard to make our more than 30-year-old administration building more efficient and sustainable.

In 2015 we achieved a 5 Star Green Star Performance rating. We were the first building in Australia to reach this level. But we didn’t stop there.

In recent years, we’ve continued to adopt new technology and practices to reduce our impact on the environment even further, and improve our building’s health for visitors and staff.

Some of the key things we’ve achieved include:

  • Reducing our energy consumption by 64%, thanks to smart lighting and efficient systems to heat and cool the building.
  • Reducing water use by 75% through a mix of improvements like low-flow taps and toilet flushing, rain water storage tanks, and reusing clean water.
  • Diverting more than 60% of our waste from landfill through recycling, composting and reducing the amount of waste we generate in the first place.

You can read more in our Building Overview report below:

Wollongong City Council Administration Building Overview Report PDF, 1874.46 KB

In June 2019 we were awarded a 6 Star Green Star Performance rating from the Green Building Council of Australia. We’re proud to be the first ‘not-new’ government building in Australia to get this rating, which puts us in the World Leadership category.

And we’re not done yet. We will keep looking at ways we can improve the way we work, not just in our administration building, but also at other buildings we manage like community centres, libraries and sports facilities.

One of the things we consider when we buy goods or services is the impact they’ll have on the environment.

Our Sustainable Procurement Policy PDF, 242.67 KB supports sustainable practices and minimises environmental impact, while getting the best value for money for our community.

We’re working to make Wollongong greener by adding more trees and plants across our city.

Find out more on our Urban Greening page.

We have a partnership with Endeavour Energy to see the remainder of the city's streetlight network be replaced with energy efficient light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures.

Find out more on our LED Streetlights page.