Our ambitious and exciting agenda will deliver a decade of action towards net zero emissions, reducing waste and building climate-resilient communities across Victoria.
SV2030 is our big picture. It sets our role, our vision, and how we will get there. We play a pivotal role in the Victorian Government, industry and the community to transition our state to a circular climate-resilient economy.
Achieving SV2030 involves us working together – our future depends on it.
Our vision
Our vision is simple – to accelerate the transition to a circular economy powered by clean energy. Our vision will see:
More jobs in the clean energy and waste recovery sectors.
More homes sharing renewable energy.
An increase in net zero carbon homes and schools.
Improved household waste sorting and organics composting.
More products manufactured from recycled materials.
Communities embracing re-use and repair facilities.
Our emissions and waste intelligence informing public policy.
Our role for the next decade
We are a delivery agency of the Victoria State Government.
We develop and deliver sustainable development programs that help deliver ambitious emissions and waste reduction targets for 2030, and onwards to net zero emissions by 2050.
In simple terms, these programs will continue to shift Victoria away from a "buy, use, dispose" culture, known as a linear economy, to an "avoid, minimise, reduce, reuse" culture, known as a circular economy.
Where are we today?
Victoria moves within a recycling economy, where we have become much better at reducing waste and energy. We’re well on our way to adopting circular principles that keep more materials in the economy for longer, and to use clean energy sources.
We employ the brightest minds to steer these programs. We develop partnerships with government departments, councils, businesses, schools, universities, and the wider community to enable this shift to the circular economy.
Sustainability Victoria will continue to bring all these parties together through the SV2030 Decade of Action vision – the resilience and the future of our state depends on it.
We are working towards the Victorian Government's 2030 targets
We’re working with other Victorian Government agencies to contribute to the following targets:
Measuring our impact
These impact areas and the data we collect for each of them contributes to reaching the Victorian Government targets for 2030.
Jobs and investments
in Victoria underpinned by circular, climate resilient and clean economic principles.
Maximise value of resources
Climate resilient
and healthy Victorian communities.
Reduce carbon emissions
by Victorian businesses, organisations and communities.
Our contributions also align to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) which are part of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
How we will get there
We are starting up, speeding up and scaling up our investment in 3 focus areas to achieve Victoria's 2030 emissions and waste targets.
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Investment and innovation play a key role in driving the transition to a clean economy for Victoria. Both are key to Victoria’s resource recovery efforts if we are to keep materials circulating in the economy at their highest value without ending up in landfill.
How we’re doing it
We’re partnering with industry to create jobs and invest in new projects. We fund industry to recover our resources and reduce our waste.
We’re providing financial and non-financial incentives and services to encourage private investment in infrastructure and other projects.
We are providing more than $100 million in funding to a variety of grant programs to support the delivery of Victoria’s plan for a circular economy. This funding supports innovative projects that provide solutions to reduce waste and emissions, improve Victoria’s resource recovery infrastructure and increase material efficiency and productivity.
After the success of the Zero Net Carbon (ZNC) Homes program, we’re expanding the market for zero-emission homes by continuing to develop, manage and promote our house energy rating tool, FirstRate5. This means more sustainable homes with lower home energy bills, improved internal temperature control and reduced carbon emissions produced by homes.
Case study: Zero Net Carbon (ZNC) Homes program
Learn more about the ZNC Homes programThe ZNC Homes program validated the attractiveness of energy-efficient homes improved industry knowledge and skills to build these homes. Benefits include:
50% lower energy bills compared with standard new home builds
reduced carbon emissions by 5 to 8 tonnes a year
cleaner air and less noise pollution, making them more comfortable all year-round.
We support businesses to take up circular economy opportunities such as improved energy and material efficiency and business models through Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre (CEBIC).
Case study: Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre (CEBIC)
Learn more about CEBICCEBIC helps businesses across the supply chain to adopt circular economy solutions that design out waste and improve efficiency. It provides support through research, funding, expert advice, and events that promote industry insights, collaboration and networking.
We’re investing in waste diversion from landfill and expanding access to food and garden organic waste recycling services or local composting.
Other innovation and investment activities
Funding or designing finance mechanisms to leverage private investment into new resource recovery and zero carbon infrastructure that will form the backbone for establishing a net-zero circular economy in Victoria.
Expanding our investment facilitation service to provide advisory business planning and facilitation services to a wider range of partners – both within and outside government.
Changing behaviour and product design thinking to reduce waste generation.
Conducting horizon scanning, research and data analysis to inform and influence the next generation zero carbon circular economy programs.
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Victorians take climate change seriously. More than 78% believe climate change needs urgent action. But what can you do to make a difference? And how do we help?
How we’re doing it
Our behaviour change and education programs are drivers for real-world change in our cities, suburbs, regions and communities. We inspire individuals, groups and entire communities to change and take action towards a net-zero future.
We’re doing this by understanding what makes people tick and analysing trends in our values and the way we connect with them.
Our campaigns spread our messages to promote changes to attitudes and behaviours and to help Victorians take the next step. You may remember ‘Love Food Hate Waste.’
Case study: Love Food, Hate Waste
Learn more about avoiding food waste at homeVictorian households send more than 250,000 tonnes of avoidable food waste to landfill every year. In 2018/19, as part of the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, more than 1,500 households joined a challenge to reduce food waste at home.
87% kept their new waste reduction behaviours after the challenge and 75% saw a substantial reduction in their household waste.
In 2022, look out for Small Act, Big Impact. Small Act, Big Impact will encourage Victorians to adopt one small act they can do that will have a big impact on reducing recycling contamination and waste.
We will embed the ResourceSmart Schools program into education policy. This means the program will be expanded from primary and secondary schools to also include early childhood, TAFE and universities.
Case study: ResourceSmart Schools
Learn more about ResourceSmart SchoolsThe ResourceSmart Schools program supports Victorian schools to embed sustainability across their facilities, community and curriculum, while saving resources and money.
Since 2008, more than 1,400 schools have participated in the program. Together, they have:
saved more than $38 million on bills
planted 5,269,342 trees
saved more than 110,000 tonnes CO2e greenhouse gas emissions
diverted 177,000 cubic metres of waste from landfill
saved 1,798,539 kilolitres of water.
We strive to keep diversity at the heart of our operations and program design. We want all Victorians to be able to participate in this journey to a circular, clean and climate resilient economy.
We are committed to working with First Peoples, recognising the role we can play as advocates for increasing knowledge, understanding and respect for their history, people and perspectives by providing learning opportunities and resources for our Victorian community.
Other behaviour change and education activities
- Enabling renewable energy capture and storage through solar gardens through the 5-star school standard.
- Creating a virtual research centre of excellence for environmental behaviour change that includes an education and insights incubatory, research platform and insights reporting and more.
- Designing training modules for construction and building trades to share knowledge about clean economy and sustainability in new housing and retrofitting.
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People are at the heart of everything we do, but communities often need a helping hand to get their ideas off the ground – that’s where we can help.
How we’re doing it
By partnering with communities, we make sure our advice meets the unique needs of local industry and works with local decision-makers. Many programs involve a variety of community sectors, linking them together to learn from each other and collaborate.
Our Community Power Hubs help small communities to save and store their power in ways that work for them – community batteries, bulk buy solar panel programs and improving energy systems on community facilities. These projects deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and cost savings and build an understanding of renewable energy. Our investment in Community Power Hubs attracts $20 million of private investment.
Case study: Community Power Hubs
Learn more about Community Power HubsThe pilot Community Power Hub program was a success! From 2017-2020, 1.35MW of renewable energy capacity was delivered back to communities and local project sites saved $364,000 in annual electricity costs.
The Grampians Community Power Hub is the newest of 7 community power hubs across the state. Launched in November 2021, it will identify projects and help get them ‘shovel ready’ with networking and expertise, funding feasibility studies or business case developments. The Grampians community will drive funding and action and the Hub will help navigate the complexities of getting sustainable energy projects off the ground.
We are prioritising vulnerable people, places and community organisations in climate change decision making. Communicating in culturally appropriate ways allows greater community involvement and gives us the greatest chance of driving down emissions and reducing waste to landfill.
We help communities bring together current initiatives, such as regional renewable energy roadmaps and climate change adaptation action plans, with circular economy initiatives to create a place-based approach.
With the Victorian Government and our community partners, we also:
Other community action activities
Facilitate and support local workshops to turn community visions into actions.
Develop new business ecosystems to create a new model of ownership based on renting rather than owning products and businesses responding to new demand for recycled materials for Victoria’s infrastructure build.
Enable SV Data and Intelligence Systems for smart tracking of distributed network growth across locations and sectors. Regional businesses and households will use the system to identify opportunities to join local microgrids, apply for collective grants and investigate renewable energy systems across Victoria.
Working together to achieve the vision
By working with industry, government and communities, our combined efforts accelerate us towards our vision – reduced emissions, reduced waste, economic growth and climate resilient communities.
We need all Victorians on board to help achieve our vision.
When we work together, we can drive down emissions towards zero net levels and reduce waste because everyone deserves a cleaner environment now and for decades to come.
Visit the Sustainability Victoria website