Who is Carbon Down?
Carbon Down is a climate-change initiative of the Victorian Government, its agency Sustainability Victoria, and the Victorian Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI).

What is our purpose?
Victorian businesses face the unprecedented challenge of reducing their carbon footprints while discovering new opportunities in the carbon economy. A ‘carbon footprint’ includes all greenhouse gases produced by the resources we consume, the energy we use and the waste we create. Just about everything we do in business – from buying stationery to running vehicle fleets – adds to this footprint, so we’ve got a big job ahead of us. Carbon Down wants to accelerate this work in a way that benefits Victorian businesses.

How do we work?
Put simply, Carbon Down recruits large companies and organisations to develop projects that help their small and medium-sized customers and suppliers reduce their carbon footprints.

What are the benefits of our model?
Ninety-nine per cent of Victoria’s business community is made up of small and medium-sized businesses (less than 100 employees). These include thousands of different types of businesses, from local milk bars and florists to IT companies, transport fleets and hairdressing salons. Spreading awareness through such a large and diverse group is always a challenge.

We've identified that the best way to change the behaviour of lots of small and medium- sized businesses is to reach them through our project partners. These might be banks with lots of small and medium-sized customers, supermarkets with lots of small and medium-sized suppliers, or industry bodies with lots of small and medium-sized members.

With funding, knowledge and support from us, our partners can develop projects that make it easier for these groups to reduce their carbon footprints. In turn, our partnerships enable us to collect and share large amounts of carbon-reduction knowledge and data. This information helps us measure Victoria's total carbon footprint, gain a better understanding of existing attitudes and how to change them, and form a consistent and accurate message about carbon reduction.