Welcome to How green is my council?

- for metro Perth, Western Australia

Howgreen was launched in October 2006, and was updated late Nov 2007 with help from Murdoch, ECU and Notre Dame students and of course, the hardworking Council enviro and sustainability officers who somehow made time to respond. The questionnaire will be revised by early October 08, to enable a fresh round of updates by Councils before Christmas.

The Howgreen team believes that every local government has enormous potential to affect - for good or ill - our planet's air, soil, water, biodiversity and climate, from its own little patch. We hope that this site will be a user-friendly tool for residents, councillors and staff of the 30 Perth metro municipalities who care deeply about what we are leaving to future generations - supporting us all in our efforts to improve the environmental sustainability performance of our Councils.

Our aim is to recognise Local Governments’ efforts to protect the environment, while also drawing attention to gaps and – we hope - raising the bar to encourage further innovation and best practice.  The Comparison Chart and the map are intended as quick overviews as to who is doing what; however please note that the green ticks cannot meaningfully be 'scored'; some Q's are not applicable in some areas and some practices carry more environmental 'weight' than others. The detailed responses from each council are published in full on the site, and we are trying to get Councils to respond afresh, and in more detail, before the end of the year.

Policies and strategies are important steps along the way to implementing changes on the ground.  While we cannot show which policies and strategies have been fully implemented, we ask Local Governments to detail which initiatives have actually become practices.  

Brenda Conochie for the the HowGreen Team, Environment House, Maylands WA. howgreen@environmenthouse.org.au August 2008