Yarra Valley Water joins Race to Zero

Yarra Valley Water has joined the United Nations’ Race to Zero campaign, with ambitious plans to generate 100% renewable energy by 2025.

The UN campaign is now being backed by 14 water utilities from Australia and New Zealand which have committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.

Yarra Valley Water Managing Director Pat McCafferty said the organisation was working to meet the goal by 2025 and was already halfway there with 50% of operations now powered by renewables.

“Climate change is the defining issue of our time and we’re proud to be leading the way in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions with ambitious goals that go beyond zero,” Mr McCafferty said.

“We’ve achieved this through leading projects like our food waste to energy facility at Wollert, which converts about 30,000 tonnes of food scraps into more than 7,000,000 kWh of clean energy a year.

“We’ve also installed solar panels at our head office and treatment plants and we’re members of Zero Emissions Water which purchases energy in bulk from Victoria’s largest solar farm.

“We’re working on how we will accelerate our progress to hit net zero by 2025, and then using the offsets we generate to go beyond zero carbon to address legacy emissions.”

Mr McCafferty said new projects, including the development of a second food waste to energy facility and expansive new floating solar installations, would help Yarra Valley Water reach its goal of 100% renewable energy by 2025.

Under Victoria’s water plan Water for Victoria, the Victorian water sector committed to leading on climate change and setting ambitious emissions reduction targets on the path to net-zero.

The Race to Zero is a global campaign to rally organisations to take immediate action to halve global emissions by 2030 and deliver a healthier, fairer zero carbon world.