he amendment to the City of Melbourne Act will enable Melbourne City Council to help building owners obtain finance for retrofit works that will reduce energy use, save water and lower carbon emissions through the city's 1200 Buildings Program.
Financial institutions will be able to advance funds to commercial building owners for environmental retrofitting works. These funds will be recovered by Council through a charge that is linked to rates collection.
Planning Minister, Justin Madden, says the 1200 Buildings Program, which aims to make two-thirds of the city's existing buildings meet ambitious green targets, would signif icantly reduce Victoria's carbon foot print while also bringing large scale investment and jobs into the city.
"Cities generate more than 70 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. Environmentally retrofitting buildings is widely recognised as one of the most cost-effective ways of cutting greenhouse gas emissions," he says.
"This legislation was introduced to accelerate the pace of change in the commercial building sector and equip Victoria to take the lead in establishing and building its green jobs sector. It addresses a major obstacle to the uptake of sustainable practices which is access to funding to undertake work."
"The City of Melbourne developed the financial mechanism with banks to build incentive for environmental retrofits and overcome the difficulty that many building owners have accessing capital to finance their environmental projects," Lord Mayor, Robert Doyle says.
"By providing the legislative amendment to bring this financial mechanism to life the Victorian Government has broken new ground towards reducing the environmental impact of cities and building the green jobs sector."
The Brumby Government has also granted $500,000 to the City of Melbourne to further assist in the development of its business model and program of services.
