The Gap Sustainability Initiative emerged in late 2020, and in 2021 focussed on providing educational seminars for the community. The topics of our seminars ranged from waste reduction to energy preservation, carbon footprint, how to facilitate community energy projects, planned burning and sustainability activities by the Brisbane City Council. You can read summaries of these events on our website.

For example, in our May seminar, we learned from Mr Luke Reade (Energetic Communities Association Inc) about what community energy projects are and how community energy investment models can work. These models seek community investors that purchase for example a solar system with battery for a community property, and then get their investment back in instalments with some profit through the cheaper electricity bills that the community organisation then benefits from. At the end of such a project the solar system then belongs to the community group and continues to provide enduring income.

Mr Reade provided information about a number of successful projects in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, and discussed a variety of investment models. We are very excited about the prospects of such a model for The Gap, and hope that we can initiate at least one in 2022.