About the Program

The Sustainable Homes and Communities Program is a behaviour change program which offers a range of practical information and ways to reduce energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, water use, waste production, as well as improving biodiversity, uptake of sustainbale food options, and increasing sustainable transport use in homes and the broader community.

The program aims to reduce the key barriers to sustainability actions including: accessibility/convenience, knowledge and skills, cost of products, lack of social pressure and support, lack of leadership and language/culture barriers.

This program aims to build on the highly successful previous Sustainable Homes Program which ran from 2007-2009. The program will still engage expert presenters and will incorporate local case studies to work with both individuals and community groups.

The program will now also work closely with community groups and their leaders and we aim to foster friendly competition between households and groups to help promote more positive environmental change. Achievements will be celebrated and shared at awards nights. The website (www.sustainablecommunities.vic.gov.au) will also be further developed to be more interactive and will share more knowledge and positive achievements from our communities.

2011 marks the beginning of the 2nd round of funding for this 3 year program, which previously ran from 2007-2009 with Darebin, Banyule and Whittlesea.

This program will now run across Banyule and Darebin municipalities, and is equally funded by the participating two councils and the Sustainability Fund.

See below for more information about the previous Sustainable Homes Program.

Residents from both municipalities can attend and participate in any of the sessions offered, provided space is available.

The Program focuses on six key environmental themes:

• Energy


• Water


• Biodiversity and Sustainable Gardening


• Waste


• Sustainable Food


• Sustainable Travel.

The Program consists of workshops, case studies, working with community groups, pledges and free sustainability retrofit kits.

Practical workshops are delivered on each of the key environmental themes/topics. The workshops were designed to give people the tools and confidence to make changes in their home and/or office, whether this be in choosing and installing a water saving shower head or a rainwater tank or getting a compost bin or worm farm working.

At each workshop participants were encouraged to write down several commitments they wanted to make to live more sustainably, based upon the advice they received at the workshop from the guest speakers and other participants.

In return for the written commitments, the Sustainable Homes Program had a limited number of Sustainability Starter Kits to give away to local residents.

The free retrofit kits contain a range of simple, easy to use or install products linked to the workshop topic and the advice given on the night by the guest speakers. All products are environmentally friendly and in many cases help residents save money on energy and water bills. These are given to workshop attendees in exchange for a completed simple evaluation form, which contains a personal pledge to take 3 actions at home that relate to the workshop topic.

For further information on the previous progam please visit Past Results and Evaluation

For further information Contact Us.