Only one earth – How Melbourne Water is reducing its carbon footprint

This World Environment Day (Sunday June 5) Melbourne Water is proud to highlight how we are taking action to address the challenges of climate change and protect Melbourne’s precious water resources.

Water is essential to our way of life. At Melbourne Water, we manage all parts of the water cycle from providing clean drinking water to treating sewage so we can recover and re-use our valued resources. We implement flood prevention plans and keep all 25,000km of Melbourne's rivers and catchments healthy.

We are committed to minimising our impact on the environment by halving our carbon emissions by 2025 and exploring a path to reach net zero by 2030. Increasing renewable energy generation is a key priority and we are already making great progress to reducing our carbon footprint.

Melbourne Water’s portfolio of renewable energy generation facilities is growing. We operate 14 mini hydropower stations, which harness energy captured from the pressure of falling or fast-moving water. We also create power by combusting biogas from the sewage treatment process. This meets around 30 percent of the electricity needed to run the Eastern Treatment Plant (ETP) and nearly all of the electricity needs of the Western Treatment Plant (WTP). Any excess electricity is exported to the electricity grid to offset usage at our other sites.

Another exciting example of moving towards net zero by using energy from low emissions sources is the 18 MW solar farm at the ETP in Bangholme which will be activated later this year. While a 9MW solar farm is under construction at the Winneke Treatment Plant.

At Melbourne Water, our vision is enhancing life and liveability now and into the future as our population grows. We will continue to reduce our emissions as much as we can, across every area of our business. To make up for emissions that cannot be reduced, we will invest in carbon offsets.

#OnlyOneEarth is the campaign for World Environment Day 2022. It calls for collective, transformative action on a global scale to celebrate, protect and restore our planet.

We all have a role to play, every action big or small, like reducing our water consumption creates the ripple, helps reduce the emissions associated with providing water services and adds up to collective change. Find out how you can make a difference with the Target 155 campaign. Future generations will be grateful for the steps we are taking now.

For more information about our projects and initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint and generate more renewable energy, visit Our Path to Net Zero page, or contact us.

Contact:  [email protected]