GeelongPort has decided to discontinue Climate Active carbon neutral certification for FY23 and beyond as the port works on developing its long-term carbon reduction plan.
Reaching carbon neutrality was one of the objectives in our environment strategy released in 2019.
This strategy detailed our environmental objectives and focus areas, including having all energy drawn from renewable sources and offsetting all carbon emissions.
Becoming Climate Active carbon neutral certified was an important step and we became certified carbon neutral for business operations in FY21. GeelongPort has submitted its FY22 certification information to Climate Active and is currently awaiting its review. We then achieved the use of 100% renewable energy in December 2022 through our Barwon Region Renewable Energy Partnership (BREP) with Barwon Water and Barwon Health.
In addition to using 100% renewable electricity, we already have some good news stories in our decarbonisation efforts:
- Installing shore power infrastructure capability for Spirit of Tasmania’s new vessels, to enable these vessels to reduce engine usage when at berth
- Installing seven data loggers on major water meters at our facilities
- Replacing virgin office paper with 100% recycled paper, moving toward paperless-office operations and enhancing our digital technology capabilities.
Climate science and emissions reduction expectations continue to move at an incredibly fast pace and our approach to climate change and carbon reduction needed to evolve.
We are now committed to investigating ways we can reduce our absolute carbon emissions rather than purchasing carbon offsets.
Offsets for the financial year 2021-22 will be the last offsets we purchase as we work on delivering a realistic and achievable medium- and long-term carbon reduction plan. This plan will be established by December 2024.
Carbon reduction is a complex process – and at GeelongPort we want to get it right.
We will keep everyone updated as we continue on our decarbonisation journey.