The ACT Government owned Icon Water has launched a plan setting out its pathway to achieve net zero emissions by 2045 and outlining the work being done to reduce its contribution to climate change.
Manager of Environment and Sustainability at Icon Water, Benjamin Bryant said its eMission Possible Plan was part of the company’s commitment to the United Nations Race to Net Zero campaign.
“We see the urgent need to reach net zero emissions and understand our responsibility in making this a reality,” Mr Bryant said.
“As a water utility provider, much of what we do relies on our environment being clean and healthy,” he said.
“As such, we have always been invested in developing ways to reduce our environmental footprint.”
Mr Bryant said the Plan put in place a pathway that focused on tackling the Organisation’s carbon footprint and supported its commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Race to Zero.
The Manager said through Icon Water’s hydro and solar installations, energy initiatives, and the ACT achieving 100 per cent renewable electricity, the Organisation had already reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent from the levels recorded in 1990.
“In 2021, Icon Water was generating a little over one per cent of the ACT’s total emissions,” he said.
“Our wastewater treatment represents a major proportion of our greenhouse gas emissions, with almost 70 per cent of those emissions coming from fugitive nitrous oxide and methane gases, which are a challenge for the whole water industry.”
Mr Bryant said that in order to understand the impact of the emissions and identify better ways to control them, Icon Water was taking steps to improve the way it measured emissions through a research and development collaboration with the University of Queensland and peer utilities.
“This will further help the industry as a whole to develop new and economically viable ways of controlling our emissions footprint,” he said.
Icon Water’s 13-page eMission Possible Plan can be accessed at this PS News link.
