Impact

The impact of WAGA’s activities from 2015-2025 was recently analysed by First Person Consulting.  It found:

• Membership of WAGA has enabled councils to participate in projects and advocacy that had net benefits (after additional investment and including grants) 4 times their membership fees.
• Led to net financial savings for WAGA members in the order of $6.1 million. Key projects have been savings made through the Electricity Distribution Price Review (EDPR) and VECO. For every dollar invested, councils are getting $3.50 dollars back in financial savings.
• Leveraged $3.2 million in grant funding. This included securing $2.2 million in grant funding for fleet electrification and $891,000 as part of the Victorian Climate Resilient Councils project.
• Facilitated projects with WAGA communities, including supporting the delivery of the Environmental Upgrade Agreements initiative, which has helped 17 businesses install more than 2000 kW of photovoltaic solar. This is, in turn, expected to save businesses $7.4 million over the life of the installations.
• Contributed to expected emission savings of 459,240 tonnes CO2-e. This has a value of:
  • $15.1 million in terms of market value; or
  • $59.7 million in terms of the value to society of the reduced emissions (according to standard economic valuation techniques).

Many of WAGA’s benefits have not been quantified. This includes a range of financial benefits that have been difficult to calculate because of the lack of data or difficulty placing an economic value on their benefits such as improved capability within councils, enhanced levels of resilience within communities etc.

Some of the impacts quantified above may have been achieved without WAGA. However, the assessment noted that based on other project-level evaluations it is likely that the scale and efficiency of projects has been greater and the impacts more substantive than if WAGA councils had worked independently.

You can read the impact assessment document here.