Decision details

Minute by the Lord Mayor

To Council:

I am pleased to report to Council that the City has recently received awards which recognise our commitment to environmental sustainability and workplace diversity and inclusion.

Smart City Awards

The Resilient Sydney Platform, a collaboration between Resilient Sydney, the City of Sydney and Kinesis, has received two awards at the Smart City Awards 2019: the overall award for the Best Smart City Project and the ‘Environmental Outcomes’ category award.

The Resilient Sydney Platform is on based the City of Sydney’s Environmental Sustainability Platform, an innovative solution developed in collaboration with Kinesis that commenced in 2015 to report environmental performance in line with the international reporting standard for community emissions.

The City has previously been recognised for international leadership in climate disclosure for producing the most comprehensive carbon disclosure project report in 2014 (Top 10 globally), 2016 (Top 5 globally), 2017 (1st regional) and 2018 (“A” score in the Leadership band). The Leadership band recognises the City for having strategic, holistic plans in place to implement climate actions.

The Resilient Sydney Platform is built on our contribution of expertise and investment and is being used to deliver a key action of the Resilient Sydney Strategy. This involves pioneering a standardised metropolitan-wide process for measuring and reporting on carbon emissions, energy, water and waste in Sydney to enable place-based targets and action.

This is the first time a robust, accessible, environmental data platform has been available for every local government area of Sydney. Councils are using the standardised data in their Local Strategic Planning Statements.

Resilient Sydney facilitated a series of capacity building workshops, including a masterclass in partnership with the NSW Government. As of September 2019, 140 strategic planners, environmental managers and general managers representing all the 33 councils of metropolitan Sydney are using the Resilient Sydney platform.

Addressing climate change is a fundamental challenge facing cities, governments and communities. On a city, state and national level we have made global commitments for action that will contribute to managing and mitigating extreme weather in Sydney.

Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Awards

The City of Sydney has received the 2019 Australian HR Award for Best Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Program.

The award recognises our efforts to build an inclusive workplace that provides opportunity and equity for women, the LGBTIQ community, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people with disability and refugees.

A wide body of research shows that diverse teams are more innovative and perform better. The quality of our customer service and community engagement improves the more our workforce reflects our broader community. Diversity and inclusion supports opportunity for all, fairness and equity – principles that we strive to achieve and value deeply at the City.

The award also recognises our recent achievements in addressing gender equity.

Women hold the Council’s most senior positions, the Lord Mayor, Chief Executive Officer and five other elected Councillors. For more than a decade, Council has made significant advances in women’s workforce participation at the City. Since 2004, the City’s female workforce has grown by 45.5 per cent. Women now make up over 40 per cent of the City’s workforce and occupy 49.7 per cent of leadership positions, including several leadership roles in male-dominated sectors.

In 2018 and 2019, the City was awarded the Local Government NSW Ministers Award for ‘Women in a Non-Traditional Role’. The City also received an award for Excellence in the area of ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ for gender equality in 2018 from NSW Local Government Professionals.

In 2015, the City began monitoring and publicly reporting on gender pay equity, and was the first local government to do so. Last year, the City introduced an extended superannuation scheme for staff on parental leave to help address the retirement wealth gap between men and women. The 2018 gender pay equity review revealed the City has a gender pay gap of 1.7 per cent for men and women at the same level, bringing the City closer to pay parity. It also revealed an overall gender pay gap of 7.5 per cent in favour of women. This means more women on average are employed in higher paying jobs across the organisation. This compares to the national gender pay gap 14 per cent in favour of men.

We still have more to do, as we understand that not all people have the same access to employment, development and advancement, but we have a very solid foundation to build upon.

Recommendation

It is resolved that Council:

(A)        acknowledge these well-deserved awards which recognise City achievements;

(B)        commend Resilient Sydney, City of Sydney staff and Kinesis for their development of the Resilient Sydney Platform and the contribution it is making to addressing climate change; and

(C)       commend the City's Workforce Services teams who have led the City's workplace diversity and inclusion initiatives over many years, and the managers and employees who put these programs and principles into practice, creating welcoming and inclusive teams.

COUNCILLOR CLOVER MOORE

Lord Mayor

Moved by the Lord Mayor, seconded by Councillor Scully –

That the minute by the Lord Mayor be endorsed and adopted.

Carried unanimously.

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