Abstract

Community service organisations (CSOs) provide key social services to the most vulnerable people in society, those most at risk for the impacts of climate change. CSOs deliver these services on tenuous operating budgets and are sensitive to increases in stationary and non-stationary energy prices. The Climate Change Readiness for Community Services project was created with the support of Australian Government funding, which was part of a fiscal stimulus package, in response to the global financial crisis in 2008/09. The project recruited and trained 45 job seekers from a metropolitan region identified as being at high risk of unemployment, to become Energy and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Auditors. The Auditors were employed, in four separate intakes, for six months, conducting 700 free energy and GHG audits on CSO buildings over an 18-month period. The Auditors developed detailed energy and water profiles and provided recommendations on how the CSOs could reduce their energy and water use and operate more sustainably. The project provided funding to implement some of the recommendations through 400 minor retrofits and 4 major retrofits on the CSOs audited.