Melbourne Eyes Green Tech Boom to Drive Economy

Clean and green tech jobs are in the sights of Melbourne’s city council as it plans for population and economic growth and ramping up the post-pandemic recovery.

At its meeting on November 8, the City of Melbourne’s Future Melbourne Committee endorsed interim targets for 2023 as part of its long-term economic strategy plan.

The council outlined a future focus on clean tech and green tech sectors as areas of growth for Melbourne as part of its vision.

“It is about identifying new possibilities such as clean tech where our team have identified more than 120,000 jobs ... across Victoria with more than our fair share here in Melbourne in these sectors, and big projects like Power Melbourne,” Melbourne lord mayor Sally Capp said.

“And our investment in ambitious projects like that certainly go towards ensuring that we are the center of growth in those new sectors.”

The Power Melbourne plan includes a battery storage and renewable energy initiative designed to accelerate the city commitment to power Melbourne with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

Several key targets for city growth across a number of factors were outlined in the report tabled at the meeting.

“We are definitely not sitting idly by,” Capp said. “With our team we are actively driving our city’s economic development and that’s exactly the way it should be.”

▲ The Power Melbourne project will set up renewable energy batteries around the city to allow it to 100 per cent renewable energy.

In 2018-2019, the City of Melbourne recorded $107.5 billion in gross local product and set a target of $120 billion for 2023-2024—and $150 billion by 2031.

It also set out a population target of 270,000 by 2031—in 2018-2019 the city had a population of 170,800.

There were 497,200 jobs in the city in that period.

The council has set an interim target for jobs of 525,00 in 2023-2024 with 600,000 jobs within the CBD and districts by 2031.

There is also a target set to get shopfront vacancy rates back down to less than 5 per cent to encourage more investment in the city.

“We want our city’s economy to thrive again,” Councillor Roshena Campbell said.

“But the only way we’re going to do that as a council is by holding ourselves accountable by setting targets and making sure that Melbourne is well placed to resume a strong growth trajectory.”

Key sectors expected to underpin Melbourne’s post-pandemic economic growth are financial and insurance services, professional, scientific and technological services, and information, media and telecommunications services.

An interim target of $229,000 in average gross local product per job for 2023-2024 was also endorsed.

The city has lost more than 30,000 jobs since 2018-2019 due to the pandemic, mostly in the retail, hospitality and transport and logistics sectors.