These communities around the city are made environmental friendly & sustainable. People of the communities are asked to segregate their waste. Waste collection & recycling is done by authority. In some suburbs people are allowed to plant only local plants in their yard. Recycled water, storm water is used for flushing & gardening on compulsory basis.
On manly beach we found a board 'Living with Penguins'. This is the only place in Sydney where small penguins visit regularly, the beaches are equipped with information boards for beach visitors guiding how they should take care for protecting these unique penguin habitat.
We were surprised to see use of solar powered equipments like parking meter, lights etc every where, especially because at least at that time it was clouded & generally rain is common there.
The sustainable buildings or Green buildings are picking up in Australia; we could see some green buildings in Sydney CBD, which were proudly displaying their sustainable status. Australia has developed their own Green Building rating system or standard, 'Green Star'. The buildings are certified by Green star on voluntary basis & given star rating as per their sustainability levels. Also a part of sustainability & conserving their culture & heritage, we get to see many old Victorian buildings in Australia which are preserved with some internal modification and are still used as shopping center, govt. buildings or tourist centers. The year of their construction is displayed on the top of nearly each heritage building. Preserving these building & using them for public use definitely meet Australia's heritage to modern world in CBDs of cities.
We also saw some banners of a political party named Green Party! Though I couldn't find out more about them, but hope they actually care for environment or sustainability.
Amongst all this, one appreciable point was' people living in Sydney were mostly aware about sustainability & knew what is intention behind this Sydney 2030 plan. So not just people or not just govt. or organizations, but making a city sustainable is a cumulative effect & needs participation from all.
We all know Sydney as a global initiator for starting Earth Hour, the sustainable movement in 2007. And this visit to the city made me believes that they truly care for sustainability & will be a good model for sustainable city.
During our visit to Melbourne, similar sustainability enthusiasm was seen with more culture & education added to it.
When we went to tourist information center, we were pleasantly surprised. We noticed a broacher for Sustainable buildings in Melbourne including list of Green buildings in Melbourne along with their location map for tourist! Pixel Building in Melbourne is Australia's Greenest Building.
These cities are full of greenery & parks. And govt. invested appropriate funds to maintain these parks, and also attract people to enjoy parks. This gives a good large open space to increase activity levels of residents.
We hear a lot about Australia's role in carbon credit & carbon offset. Climate control & sustainability is very much discussed on governmental & policy maker level in Australia. Frankly I don't know how much it is affecting on actual energy conservation or sustainability. I won't even talk about political part behind it. But it's effect on common people is environmental & sustainability awareness on great extent. Also many businesses & developers take interest in sustainability voluntarily. This is definitely a good effect.
Overall Australia looked very much open for all sustainability ideas & in near future it will definitely be a good model for sustainability.
Generally sustainable developments are asked to create facility for educating visitors about sustainability from certification bodies. But I found, walking on streets of Sydney & Melbourne will serve the purpose of sustainability education!