Hamilton City Council has published its first public climate change disclosure report alongside the 2023-24 Annual Report. Our Climate Statement 2023/24 tracks progress against our emissions targets and identifies key areas for improvement.

In 2022, Council set organisational and city-wide emissions reduction targets for 2030 and 2050 based on a 2018/19 baseline.

Council is making good progress against the 2030 target. Council’s operational emissions have fallen by 5% in the last year, and by 20% since 2018/2019. Operational emissions are the emissions associated with Council operations and activities to run the city.

Charlotte Catmur, Sustainability and Climate Change Manager, said there were several projects delivered during the year to improve emissions reductions from Council.

“In the past year, we’ve improved our energy efficiency and switched from natural gas to electricity at some Council sites. We’ve also introduced new ways for staff to travel for work including a Mevo car-share hub and we've added e-bikes and e-scooters to our fleet to replace trips normally made in petrol vehicles.”

Hamilton’s city-wide emissions increased by 6% from 2018/2019 to 2021/2022 and are not on track to meet target reductions.

“Waiting three years to see how the city’s emissions are tracking is too long,” said Catmur.

“We're now implementing a project to measure city emissions annually to better understand how the city is progressing and to inform Council's climate actions.”

“Knowing how our emissions are changing is important to guide the decisions Council make. More action from Council, central government, and the community is needed over the next few years to achieve our emissions reduction targets and support an easy transition to a low-carbon city.”

Our Climate Statement 2023/24 focuses on how climate change risks and opportunities are integrated across the organisation in four domains: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.

The report outlines key areas Council has focused on to date, including the completion of its first climate change risk assessment, which highlighted the physical impacts of climate change on Council assets and operations. This assessment helped to inform investment in the 2024-2034 Long-Term Plan. At the time of assessment, Council did not have detailed climate modelling for Hamilton, so it was limited by using regional data.

“We're still on a journey to build our knowledge of climate change specific to Hamilton and Council,” said Catmur.

“We expect to have updated modelling and understanding of impacts for Hamilton in 2025 and will use this information for future risk assessments.”

Council's priorities for climate change include further work on understanding climate change risks for both the city and the organisation, identifying key opportunities for reducing emissions, and building the capacity and capability to respond.

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