Sustainable city living
Green Villages
We all have a part to play in reducing our impact on the planet.
The City of Sydney is running the Green Villages program to help local residents lead more sustainable lifestyles.
Full of simple, practical tips, the Green Villages site aims to encourage residents to live sustainably, provide a space for everyone to contribute green ideas and connect people with experts who are working towards a greener, healthier earth.
What’s on the Green Villages site?
You can find out more about:
Green workshops: Consider the Green Villages site your portal to help you create a more sustainable life. Our exciting workshop topics include edible gardens, composting and worm farming, upcycling, natural cleaning products, and much more.
Green tips: Going green begins in your home and extends far beyond your front door! Here you’ll find some handy hints for your home, work and even holidays. Other green ideas include the best local collaborative consumption sites, and water and energy-saving advice.
Grants: City grants support projects that add to what you love about your village and help different people in the community come together for something great. Find out about the types of grants on offer and all the latest success stories.
Community gardens: Part of the move towards locally grown foods, community gardens can significantly reduce the carbon impact of transported fruits and vegetables. Head to Green Villages for advice about starting your own community garden and more information about some of our favourites.
Plants and animals: Learn about the native plants and animals that call the local area home, find out what we’re doing to help them flourish and see what you can do too.
City farm: We have partnered with the Powerhouse Museum to create the first city farm for central Sydney. Find out how it came about, all about the advisory group and what’s next for our farm in the city.
For more information about Green Villages, please scroll down to view the video gallery.
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Green Living Centre
The Green Living Centre is bursting with sustainable goodness including a bike library, free workshops, tours and simple ideas for everyday sustainable living.
It also offers support and advice to local businesses to become more sustainable.
Sound good? Find out more or book your workshop online.
The Green Living Centre is a partnership between the City of Sydney and Marrickville Council.
Contacts
Green Living Centre
218 King Street
Newtown NSW 2042
Tel: 02 9519 6366
Opening hours
Tuesday to Saturday: 10am to 4pm
Thursday: 10am to 7pm
Links
Smart Green Apartments
Just under 75% of residents in the local area live in apartment buildings. These vertical villages account for 38% of the local area’s water use, 10% of its greenhouse gas emissions and 11.5% of its waste.
To help owners and residents reduce their water and energy use, and minimise waste the City has developed the Smart Green Apartments program.
About Smart Green Apartments
Smart Green Apartments is a program that aims to help create more cost effective and efficient buildings, improve performance of shared services and amenities and minimise environmental impacts.
To develop the program, an initial 5 pilot buildings were engaged. Energy, water and waste assessments were undertaken, with each building receiving an action plan with recommendations to improve sustainability including associated costs and pay back periods.
Smart Green Apartments is being rolled out across a further 25 buildings. The program is working with executive committees, strata managers and building managers to build the capacity for owners corporations to implement upgrades and plan for sustainability into the future.
Invaluable data is being gathered from the program with the hope that over the next few years this ground work will instigate significant change across all of the local area’s residential apartment dwellings.
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Benefits of the program
Well performing, efficient buildings cost less money to run and are in increasing demand from prospective buyers and renters.
All five of the pilot buildings in the program underwent upgrades to their lighting. One building is now saving $10,600 each year through bulb upgrades in the lifts and car park. Another building is saving 82% in power use through fire escape lighting upgrades.
The first and current phase of the program focuses on developing and delivering Smart Green Apartments to 30 buildings.
If you would like to hear results and be alerted to future developments and events, please register your interest by visiting the link below and completing the short survey.
For more information about Smart Green Apartments, please scroll down to view the video.
Contacts
Smart Green Apartments Program Manager
02 9265 9333smartapartments@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Links
Green Villages - From Seed to Plate
Green Villages is about coming together as a community and creating a more sustainable city. From Seed to Plate follows Mum & Bub as they discover how to grow food in small spaces.
The Smart Green Apartments program will create a more sustainable apartment building sector by inspiring, driving and supporting cost-effective and efficient buildings, minimising environmental impacts and improving liveability in strata communities.
Green Strata
Green Strata is a Sydney-based, not-for-profit organisation that evolved due to the lack of sustainability knowledge easily obtainable for strata-titled property owners.
Run by property owners, the organisation focuses on helping occupiers of apartment buildings improve the sustainability of their property and the community of residents.
The Green Strata site
The site aims to be a destination for strata owners looking for information to improve the sustainability of their buildings, case studies of what owners have already achieved and how they did it as well as independent recommendations for a range of related products and services.
Links
Last updated: Friday, 24 May 2013