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Our climate journey

Climate change has always been, and continues to be, a key priority for Council. While we are committed to improving our approach, we also want to acknowledge past efforts and celebrate successes.

Take a look at some of the key themes we have identified and examples of solutions we implemented as a Council over the years.

Notable Projects

Solar Power

Presenting our ever-expanding solar installations:

  • Aquatics and Recreation Centre: 175 kW
  • Campbelltown Library: 50 kW
  • Council Offices and Chambers: 27 kW
  • Campbelltown Memorial Oval: 45 kW, accompanied by an 85 kWh battery system
  • Max Amber Sportsfield: 50 kW, featuring a 35 kWh battery system
  • Function Centre: 6 kW
  • Lochend Community Hall: 3 kW
  • Hectorville Community Hall: 2 kW
  • Athelstone Community Hall: 4 kW
  • Steve Woodcock Sports Centre: 13 kW

Our current solar capacity stands at an impressive 375 kW. These installations have collectively reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 280 T CO2-e annually, equivalent to the emissions of 48 standard residential homes or 61 passenger vehicles for a year.

But we're not stopping here! Our commitment to sustainability means we have more solar projects in the pipeline, ensuring that our city's green energy infrastructure continues to grow.

Here's a look at our solar upgrades so far.

Street Lighting Upgrade

Brighter Streets, Greener City

LED Street Light Upgrade: In 2018, we upgraded 3,666 incandescent streetlights in our City to energy-efficient LEDs.

Energy Savings: This upgrade led to a 34% reduction in electricity usage in the year of implementation.

Environmental Impact: The upgrade helped avoid 373 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019/20. To put it in perspective, this is equivalent to the emissions of 63 standard homes or 81 passenger vehicles for a year.

Continuous Improvement: As older gaseous lighting systems naturally reach the end of their lifespan, we make it a priority to replace them with energy-saving LED technology, ensuring our city stays at the forefront of sustainability.

ESD Guidelines

In 2023, the Council endorsed ESD Guidelines for Council buildings. These guidelines provide an internal framework for Council’s building-related projects, and aims to improve the sustainability and minimise environmental footprint during each phase of construction, renovation, operation, and maintenance of Council owned buildings.

Community Battery

Department for Energy and Mining (DEM), in partnership with SA Power Networks and Council, secured grant funding from the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water to establish a Community Battery in Magill.

In 2024, a community battery was installed at Tuku Wirra in Magill, as part of the Government of South Australia’s emPowering SA Program.

The community-scale energy storage system has increased our local and state’s renewable energy and at the same time enables the lowest residential electricity rate in South Australia to be made available to at least 300 social housing tenants in Magill and surrounds.

To learn more about the program, visit: www.energymining.sa.gov.au/consumers/solar-and-batteries/community-batteries.

Campbelltown Cool Spaces

In 2023, Council received a Disaster Risk Reduction Grant through the Federal Government’s Disaster Risk Reduction Grants Program to investigate the Campbelltown community’s need for a Cool Refuge and trial the Cool Spaces program.

Since then, the Cool Spaces program has been successfully implemented across multiple summer seasons. Cool Spaces provides free, air-conditioned community spaces during extreme heat, supporting residents who have limited access to air conditioning or are concerned about the cost of running it at home.

City of Campbelltown’s Cool Spaces Program has been previously recognised for its positive impact with three major awards:

  • Local Government Winner of the Resilient Australia Award SA 2024
  • Local Government Highly Commended Award at the National Resilient Australia Award 2024
  • Commendation award at the 2024 Awards for Planning Excellence SA by the Planning Institute Australia (PIA).

Learn more about Campbelltown Cool Spaces here: www.campbelltown.sa.gov.au/coolspaces

Tree Planting

We aim to increase our canopy cover by 20% by 2045, focusing on five key themes:

GROW: Collaboratively expand our Urban Forest on public and private lands for sustainable growth.

MANAGE: Enhance data collection, health monitoring, and risk management for existing and new plantings.

PROTECT: Safeguard our diverse and valuable tree assets, often overlooked but essential to our community.

SUSTAIN: Create the ideal environment for our Urban Forest to thrive, promoting healthy soil and water management.

ENGAGE: Foster appreciation and awareness of our urban trees, combatting misconceptions and building community connections for lasting success.

We have committed to planting more than 1,100 trees annually. We currently maintain more than 33,700 trees! You can explore the Campbelltown Urban Forest Map where we have all our street trees mapped for you to investigate our wonderful diversity!  In our back end, we keep track of how they are managed, including pruning, watering and storm damage, and any concerns logged by our community.

Urban Heat Island Mapping

Beat the Heat with Smart Urban Planning!

By blending clever urban designs, efficient water usage, lush green spaces, and innovative cool surface materials, we can help reduce the impact of urban heat island effect. The Council has been collecting data to understand urban heat island effect across the city.

Check out the Government of South Australia's Urban Heat and Tree Mapping Viewer to see how your neighbourhood is doing!

Council banned the installation of artificial turf on verges, as the heat mapping work identified this as consistently being the hottest surface during both day and night time.

Our partners at Resilient East has put together a helpful fact sheet to help you navigate this tool.

Kitchen Caddy Roll-Out

In 2013, Council trialled the idea of providing kitchen caddies to residences to promote sustainable food scrap recycling. It was found to be successful and in 2020, Council expanded the food scrap recycling service to all residents in Campbelltown City Council. With the help of a Green Industries SA grant and 193 volunteer waste warriors across the City, we managed to roll this out to every household in the Council area.

Residents can pick up a free year’s supply of compostable bin liners every year, and if the caddy is broken or needs replacing, Council can provide a new one. Food organics into the Green organics bin is also known as FOGO – if it grows, it goes!

More information about managing food at home, and the benefits of recycling food scraps can be found on our food waste recycling page.

Cooling Campbelltown

Keeping more water on site and growing more vegetation is one way to cool our suburbs.  a Green Adelaide grant received in 2021. Campbelltown is improving the greening and cooling of our suburbs in several targeted known heat hotspot or low canopy areas. We've also adopted 20+ Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) techniques to keep those trees hydrated.

Through our partnerships with Water Sensitive SA , Treenet and Resilient East, our staff remain upskilled on the best ways to improve water retention, future proofing our trees and vegetation for climate change and more extreme weather.

You can find out more about how we are integrating WSUD into our streets and parks on our Water Sensitive Urban Design page.

Declaring Climate Emergency

Since declaring a climate emergency in November 2019, Council has systematically taken action to tackle climate change. This includes: