The City of Sydney program has commenced the Smart Green Apartments program which helps Owners Corporations by providing sustainability assessments for individual buildings.

The assessments identify opportunities to improve energy and water efficiency, provide recycling infrastructure within apartment buildings and help residents reduce household waste.

The pilot program is working with five apartment buildings, with plans to expand the program to up to 30 buildings. These case studies will then be shared with up to 700 apartment buildings across the city.

Christine Byrne, Chair of the Owners Corporation of Parkridge Apartments and founder of the non-profit group, Green Strata, welcomed being part of the City’s program.

“There are enormous opportunities to both reduce water and energy water bills and doing the right thing for the environment,” said Byrne.

“In the apartment building where I live, we have already reduced our water consumption by 20 per cent by installing low flow shower heads, flow restrictors on taps and fixing leaks. Now we’re saving $11,500 per year in reduced water bills with a pay back period of less than two months.”

The Smart Green Apartments program will involve the City of Sydney working in partnership with state government, utilities, Owners Corporations and Executive Committees as well as strata agencies to improve the environmental performance of apartment buildings.

Energy audits for the pilot program will be subsidised by the Office of Environment & Heritage's Energy Saver program.

“Three quarters of the population in the inner city already live in apartments and within 20 years half the state’s population will too. So it makes sense that we work with them to help them reduce energy and water consumption,” Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP said.

“Statistics show a person living in an apartment on average accounts for twice the energy related emissions of someone living in a house. This is due to common area services and amenities such as hot water, heating and cooling systems, lighting, car parks, pools and gyms.

It is part of the City's Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy to reduce use of drinking water by 25 per cent and increase to 66 per the amount of resource recovery from waste.