Trellis accurately tracks Adelaide Hills Council’s sustainability progress – measuring everything from water to fuel usage.
Sharon Leith is the Sustainability Coordinator at Adelaide Hills Council, a local government organisation in South Australia. In her role, Sharon is responsible for managing the council’s sustainability initiatives and reporting on their environmental performance.
The Council’s Members are committed to protecting the Adelaide Hills’ valuable natural environment and are striving towards more efficient use of resources and a reduction in water and energy usage – particularly through their Corporate Carbon Management Plan.
One of the key challenges Sharon faced was tracking and reporting on the Council’s energy and fuel usage.
“We had an increasing need to report on energy consumption, particularly as we were funding solar panels and a range of energy efficiency works,” Sharon says. “Prior to Trellis our reporting capabilities were limited to costs – not kilowatts, litres, or anything else that was a good measure of sustainability.”
In order to demonstrate the Council’s progress in sustainability, Sharon needed to be able to track and report on energy and fuel usage in a comprehensive and accurate way.
To address this challenge, a team across Council began looking for a solution that could help them manage and organise their environmental data. After conducting an online investigation and interviewing several organisations, they decided to procure Trellis.
“We were attracted to the fact that Trellis is an evolving platform,” Sharon explains. “While it met our existing requirements, it was also developing advances such as better connections with invoicing and segmentation of project components.”
Trellis provided the Adelaide Hills Council with an easy-to-use system for tracking and reporting on key metrics for energy, water and fuel usage. The Trellis team was also able to meet Sharon’s requests for additional features and functionality, such as Scope 3 reporting.
Trellis has greatly improved the Council’s ability to monitor their energy, water and fuel consumption and provide accurate reporting for the Corporate Carbon Management Plan. As a result, Sharon has been able to demonstrate the Council’s 38% reduction in energy usage over the past six years.
Trellis has also helped the Council’s facilities maintenance team identify and address water leaks, which has saved them a significant amount of money.
Overall, Sharon has been very happy with the Trellis team and the impact that the Trellis system has had on the council’s sustainability efforts.
“Trellis has greatly improved the accuracy of our reporting and freed up my time to focus on other value-adding activities. I’ve recommended Trellis to numerous environmental and sustainability officers in South Australian councils.”
