Towards Zero

QUEENSCLIFF MUSIC FESTIVAL'S SUPPORT FOR ZERO EMISSIONS

If you’ve been to The Borough of Queenscliffe, you know we live in a special place - pristine beaches, soaring sandstone cliffs and internationally recognised bays and wetlands. It’s a spectacular place to stage a music festival.

We want this beautiful region to stay that way, so we are supporting the delivery of our community-led Climate Emergency Response Plan (CERP).

You might not know this, but our remarkable little community has established its own climate action Group (QCAN) that works with local council and organisations like Queenscliff Music Festival, to get us all toward zero emissions by 2031. These guys deliver a range of programs like solar, heat pump and battery bulk buys, energey efficient building audits and environmental regeneration projects.

Festival goers have jumped on board with our plan to separate waste into streams, respected our single use plastic free policy, embraced our sustainability goals, and you’ve treated our green team volunteers like the legends they are. For that we say thank you!

Now, we’re extending our good energy into our local community, by supporting Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale to reach net zero emission by 2031. 

This involves us working together to seriously reduce carbon emissions across our community – the big ones for us locally are the electricity and gas we use to power our homes and businesses, and transport. At the same time we need to make sure we protect our local biodiversity and regenerate our environment to draw down carbon and ensure that this incredible place is protected for future generations.

When you add-on one $6 Emission Reduction Credit to your festival ticket you are contributing to our collective effort to become a Zero Carbon Community.

Check out this short video to see the impact our partnership with QCAN is already having in our community!

With your support, we can continue achieving great things together. Since QCAN was formed, our community has:

• Gotten behind a highly successful community solar program which generated a huge amount of interest in solar, batteries and heat pump hot water systems.
• Massively increased the amount of installed solar capacity from the rooftops of our homes, businesses and community organisations - from 2500kW to 6500kW. Nice work to everyone who has installed solar panels!   
• Almost doubled the amount of solar energy that we're exporting into the grid from 1300 MWh to 2500 MWh - that's enough to power 560 homes for a year.
• Secured state government funding for four neighbourhood batteries to make space for more solar production in our community by providing a way to store and redistribute excess solar at a time when it is needed.
• Embraced a region-first energy efficient homes program to make our homes operate more efficiently  – reducing emissions and saving us all a load of money on electricity bills in the long run.
• Secured funding for solar energy systems for local organisations, and facilitated upgrades and installations on Queenscliff Primary School, the Point Lonsdale Bowls Club, Santa Casa, the Queenscliff Point Lonsdale Yacht Club and soon, the Bellarine Railway. These installations have drastically slashed the organisations’ energy bills but also will reduce our community's emissions profile by more than 135 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.
• Got their hands dirty with significant replanting projects in parks and recreation areas, regenerating with Indigenous species that have adapted to our local climatic conditions and provide the right food and shelter for our wildlife - thanks to the Swan Bay Environment Association and Bellarine Catchment Network for their awesome work here!
• Backed our Council to transition its entire operations to a 100% renewable electricity supply.
• Provided our local school kids with support to become climate active in their community through regular Junior QCAN events, including Ride to School days each term.