Optimising local council sustainability programs for residential strata

To improve sustainability programs for residential strata buildings, local councils can take several targeted actions to overcome the unique "friction points" such as cost concerns and technical constraints....

1. Financial Support and Incentives
Councils can bridge the "cost concern" gap by providing direct financial assistance:

• Sustainability Rebates: Offer targeted rebates for common property upgrades like meter panel upgrades, heat pumps, or shared EV charging stations.
• Financing Partnerships: Partner with organizations like Sydney Water for programs like WaterFix® Strata, which often allows for "no upfront cost" repairs funded by the resulting water savings. Assist strata schemes to navigate “funding options” which can include strata loans, energy leasing and power purchase agreements
• Grant Navigation: Assist strata committees in applying for large state and federal grants, such as the Solar for Apartment Residents (SoAR) grant, which can cover up to 50% of installation costs. 

2. Specialized Technical Assistance
To address "technical and physical constraints," councils can provide expert guidance:

• Free Energy Audits: Fund professional assessments to benchmark a building's performance (e.g., using NABERS for Apartments) and identify specific areas for high-impact improvement.
• Expert Consulting Services: Initiatives like Lane Cove's "Ask a Sustainability Expert" provide free, independent advice in a zoom environment for short periods of 30 minutes to 45 minutes.
• Solar for Strata Audits of entire LGA: Provide pre-screening of all the rooftop solar opportunities on stratas in an LGA, helping committees understand their roof's potential before they commit to deeper levels of engagement with council programs e.g. dedicated solar feasibility studies or solar/battery feasibility studies. A blog on "LGA wide" solar for strata audits is here. 
• Funding Options. Help strata schemes navigate the best way to pay for upgrades from capital works fund, special levies, strata loans, energy leasing, power purchase agreements, community solar trusts etc without providing 'financial advice' or 'tax advice' which is subject to regulation
• Motions and By-Law frameworks. Help strata schemes with setting the 'frameworks' for motions and by-laws without providing formal 'legal advice'.

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3. Education and Awareness
To move beyond "already-engaged owners," councils can broaden their outreach:

• Knowledge-Sharing Networks: Create networking groups (like the Electrify Strata Whatsapp Group) where strata managers, owners and industry professionals can troubleshoot and share success stories. Join the Electrify Strata whatsapp group here.
• Self-paced training. Online training courses can have "optional" quizzes at the end, where the strata committee member can get their results and have a coaching session on their results. Example courses are: Solar Readiness for Strata online training course. EV Charging Readiness for Strata online training course.
• Multilingual Communications: Ensure program materials and resident guides are available in multiple languages to include all residents
• Educational Workshops: Run free face to face community workshops on topics like composting, waste reduction, and the new "sustainability infrastructure" laws that make sustainability a compliance issue at each AGM
• Video/Webinar training material grouped by topic.

Playlist of Videos

Strata Committee Members talking about electrification

Solar for Strata Webinars

EV Charging for Strata Webinars

Battery for Strata Webinars

Hot Water for Strata Webinars

Lighting for Strata webinars

Ventilation for Strata webinars

Sustainability for Strata Webinars

4. Policy and Regulatory Facilitation
Councils can use their regulatory role to lower barriers:

• Streamlined Approvals: Simplify the development application (DA) process for sustainable infrastructure, such as solar arrays or battery storage on common property. Provide access to complying development certificate “certifiers” to make it easy for the Owners Corporation to engage with them e.g. installing a battery > 20kWh
• Heritage Constraints. Provide a conduit from the sustainability team into the planning team which handles heritage applications, rather than dropping the strata committee member and letting them battle their way through to get heritage information themselves. e.g. remove 'siloed' thinking within council.

5. Rewards and Recognition

• Annual Awards Evening. Provide a range of awards to recognise sustainability achievement throughout the year. Awards for strata schemes which do something innovative that hasn’t been done before, strata committees who achieve the biggest improvements, strata managers which support the strata committees and facilities managers which support the strata committees. The “Strata Sustainability Champion of the Year” could go to a strata committee member, strata manager or facilities manager.
• Online map of strata sustainability achievements. Give kudos to specific strata schemes which have installed things such as solar, batteries, heat pumps, EV charging infrastructure etc See the City of Sydney Electrify Strata map.

Just a few thoughts to help lower the cost to council of carbon emissions reduced across the residential strata segment for local council sustainability teams in 2026.

Contributor:
Brent Clark
​CEO, Wattblock