Useful links

 

Some of these sites may support you with progressing some of the actions that arise from the Sustainability Health Check. Whilst responsibility for sustainability is taking a more central corporate position, many resources for sustainability are still hosted within environment departments of commonwealth and state government. Many government bodies also provide funding for local government to progress with aspects of sustainability.

Note these are only a small taster of resources available on the web. LGMA NSW provides them as reference only, without endorsement.

 

Learning from our professional colleagues - LGMA NSW has a number of Special Interest Groups working on improving many aspects of local government practice from Governance to Human Resources, Financial Professionals and Integrated Planning.  Join these to tap into state-wide networks.

 

UN Decade for Education for Sustainability (2005-14)

Integrated reporting and indicators – Global Reporting Initiative (see the public sector supplement).

Learning for Sustainability - Commonwealth National Action Plan for Education for Sustainability “Living Sustainably”.

Learning for Sustainability – NSW Environmental Education Plan “Learning for Sustainability” www.environment.nsw.gov.au/cee

 

Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability http://www.aries.mq.edu.au/portal/

Centre for Local Government at University Technology Sydney www.clg.uts.edu.au

The Urban Sustainability Support Alliance www.lgsa.org.au/USSA This project made up of a number of state and local agencies was set up to support councils in many aspects of their journey towards sustainability. The website holds a number of useful resources.

 

Government Documents

 

NSW State Plan http://www.nsw.gov.au/stateplan/ This covers five key areas of rights, respect and responsibility, delivering better services, fairness and opportunity, growing prosperity across NSW and an environment for living.

NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au For a host of NSW wide information from coastal to aboriginal communities, parks to resource management, climate change policy and programs, rebates and water management.

The NSW Environmental Trust provides extensive funding opportunities http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/grants/envtrust.htm and tackles the most significant environmental problems. The Climate Change Fund provides resources for addressing many aspects of climate change.

Commonwealth Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts www.environment.gov.au For a host of links including the Commonwealth National Action Plan for Education for Sustainability (2009), Triple Bottom Line Reporting, Climate Change (many aspects of), transport, education, householder and business programs, corporate sustainability reference documents and grant programs

Commonwealth Environmental Grants  

CSIRO - http://www.csiro.gov.au Climate change (many aspects including adaption and mitigation), energy, farming, social research, health and wellbeing, transport, science.

 

Community engagement (remembering that your community is both within council and within the broader communities)

International Association for Public participation http://www.iap2.org/ 

Victorian State Government has extensive resources on community engagement.

 

Leadership – there are numerous articles and programs regarding leadership.

Ethics – St James Ethics Centre www.ethics.org.au

Environmental Accounting EPA Victoria http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/bus/accounting/whatisema.asp and University of Sydney http://www.isa.org.usyd.edu.au/research/nea.shtml

Sustainable Choice Local Government Purchasing for Sustainability http://www.lgsa-plus.net.au/www/html/956-sustainable-choice.asp

Ecological foot printing www.epa.vic.gov.au/eco-footprint

 

Email networks. There are numerous networks, blogs and email groups addressing sustainability matters in the local government sector globally.

 

 

 

Web links correct as at April 2009.

 

useful links