Zero Emissions Cairns (ZEC) is a group of passionate volunteers with a goal to accelerate local progress towards Queensland’s renewable energy and emission reduction targets.
How do we accelerate local progress? We do this by connecting households and businesses with options for renewable energy and zero emissions products, from electric vehicles through to carbon neutral toothbrushes.
We are guided by the Beyond Zero Emissions and Ironbark Sustainability emissions snapshot of the Cairns region which has been produced in the challenging space of data quality, calculation methodologies and national averages. Regardless of any generalisations, the identification of electricity and transport (i.e. vehicle fuels) as the major source of the regions greenhouse gas emissions aligns with similar patterns across Australia. The next most significant contributor to the Cairns Region’s carbon emissions is transport accounting for almost 30%. Additionally, Zero Emissions Cairns acknowledges that embodied emissions (i.e. emissions from the fossil fuels used to extract, manufacture and transport consumer goods to retail outlets) is potentially a bigger emissions reduction challenge than our individual use of electricity and vehicle fuels. But as countries and corporations swap fossil fuels for renewables and electrify freight transport the opportunity to buy carbon neutral products will increase.