Circular Economy Household Education Fund – Round 3: Information bulletin

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This video shows 2 speakers presenting at the Circular Economy Household Education Fund Information Session on 14 February 2023.

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Laura Simic:

Hello. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. We'll kick off in, a minute or so. Thank you to those of you who have attended nice and early. We could see the numbers climbing up. That's fantastic.

All right. 10:01, I think we will kick off. So good morning, everybody, and welcome. Thanks for making the time to attend the information session today on round three of the Circular Economy Household Education Fund. I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands upon which we're meeting today. So I am on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land and I pay my respects to the elders past, present and emerging. I acknowledge that we live and work on the lands of the world's oldest and most sustainable culture, and I acknowledge the deep connection to Earth and First Nations peoples and their invaluable contributions to our understanding of climate change and the environment.

So, my name is Laura Simic and I'm the program lead for the Circular Economy Household Education Fund. Today, you'll also hear from Rayna Mishra, who's the team leader of campaigns, activation and outreach. So, firstly, I'll we taking you through the background of the Circular Economy Policy and the program at SV, and then I will take you through all the aspects of the fund, the guidelines, the application form, and the assessment criteria. And then I'll pass to Rayna, who will be taking you through the key elements of the campaign and the campaign materials, because to be eligible for a grant under this fund, you must use the SV campaign materials for your project. And then we'll hand over to you for questions.

So you can type the questions at any time into the Q&A icon on the Teams. I think it's on the right-hand side of the options on your screen. We'd really like you to include your name and organisation if you do ask a question because as well as we will try and answer as many questions as possible during the session today. If we can't get them get to them all. We will follow up with you for any specific enquiries. Any general questions that are asked today, we will be publishing the answers on an information bulletin on the fund webpage. Lastly, today we will also close up with a quick summary of the key dates and the links and the contact emails, which we will have discussed throughout the session. Also, please note this session is being recorded and the link to the recording will be on the fund webpage probably in about a week, and we will be sending out an email with the link too.

Okay. So to start off with, a quick check-in about the policy that I'm sure you're all very familiar with now. So the Victorian government has invested just over half a billion dollars to transform our waste and recycling services in Victoria. The government's Circular Economy Policy, Recycling Victoria: a new economy, established the move towards the 4-stream household recycling services, and SV is delivering the education and behavior change program to support the introduction of these new 4-stream services under the policy. So we're all working together to achieve the policy targets, which are reducing per capita waste generation by 15%, increasing waste recovery to 80%, halving organics to landfill, as well as reducing problematic plastics.

So, a quick recap on what the 4-stream services are under the policy. So, a glass only recycling service, which may be kerbside bin or drop-off or a combination. A food and garden organic service, which could also be kerbisde bin or drop-off. For some councils, it may also involve adding food organics to an existing garden organic service or expanding an opt-in garden or food and garden organic service to the entire community. Also, updating the bin lid colors to achieve consistency across the state.

So, this slide here shows the high level design of SV Circular Economy Program. So flowing from the Circular Economy Policy I just mentioned, the education and behavior change program or the CE Program for short has two key campaign focus areas. So the first one in the blue there is about reforming recycling services. So this includes the introduction of the glass and food and organic service and reducing contamination generally, as well as other household recycling, so e-waste, household chemicals and soft plastics disposal. The second focus there in the red is about avoiding and minimising waste, which will look at reducing food waste, as well as single use plastics and using reusables. So these two campaign focus areas will be delivered at both the statewide and local levels to create one consistent campaign.

So, Sustainability Victoria will be delivering a statewide campaign, which will focus on big picture information that's relevant to all Victorians. And then the local campaigns which will be delivered by you, the councils and the Alpine Resorts, which will focus on the local level information that's more relevant to your community. This is where the fund comes in because this fund provides the financial support to deliver the local campaigns for the service change or to improve your services for future service change.

So, let's get to the main topic, the Circular Economy Household Education Fund, which was formally known as the Recycling Victoria Household Education and Behavior Change Fund. So yeah, as I mentioned, I'll be taking you through all the details of the fund and apologies in advance for some very text-heavy slides. It's very challenging to make funding details very creative.

So, the fund is just over $6 million to support the delivery of local campaigns by you, the Victorian councils and Alpine Resorts. To do this, Sustainability, Victoria has developed campaign materials to educate and help Victorians to use the new household recycling services correctly and to ultimately achieve low levels of contamination. So we've had two successful rounds of the fund already in 2021 and 2022, and round three will now be the final round of the fund.

Laura Simic:

So for round three, applicants of the fund must use the SV campaign materials to introduce the new household recycling services if you're introducing a new service before the 31st of December 2024. Or if you are not introducing a new service before the 31st of December, 2024 or you've already achieved and introduced the 4-stream services, then you can still apply and use the campaign materials to improve your existing household recycling streams and promote the recycling system to build community trust and pave the way for a successful implementation of new services in the future. So this eligibility is different to round one and two, which means that regardless of where you're at on your new service journey, you are eligible in this third and final round of the fund.

So a few things just to note upfront, you can only apply and receive one grant under this fund. So if you've already received a grant in round one or two, then you can't apply again. So feel free to drop out of this meeting as you do not need to be here. But if you haven't received a grant under the fund, it is really important that you do apply in this round. As I've said, it will be the last round of the fund and we have expanded the eligibility so that all of you are able to apply. These grants are not competitive. Funds have already been set aside for each council and Alpine Resort. So, basically, if you complete your application and agree to the requirements, you will receive a grant under this fund.

One of the requirements, again, you must use the SV campaign materials. This grant is not intended to support 100% of all your campaign activity in relation to introducing new services. There is not a mandatory contribution for this grant, but it is reasonable to expect that you may have some additional costs beyond the funding that we will provide. Lastly, you will have two years to complete your project. And to submit your monitoring and evaluation report under this fund. So all projects must be completed by 30 June, 2025.

Okay. So funding amounts, how much money can you expect? For Alpine Resorts Victoria, it's fairly straightforward with $100,000 set aside to split equally among the resorts. For councils, you receive a set amount of $30,000 plus a variable component and that's to a maximum of $106,000. So we have determined the variable component of the funding for councils based on data, which includes the number of residents, the number of residential properties and the density of the residential properties. Also, a small portion of the variable component is determined by the evidence that you provide in your application form on any behavior change challenges in your area. So for example, that could be, say, the complexity of your service change or challenges with seasonal population increases perhaps. But yes, that is how much you may expect.

So, let's have a look at what will be funded. So again, only activities using the campaign materials that Sustainability Victoria has developed. These activities must take place in Victoria and they must be completed within two years, so again, before 30 June, 2025. A minimum of 60% must be used to advertise locally. We do recommend probably closer to 80% be used on advertising just to ensure a really broad reach across your community. And then the remaining 20 to 40% can be used for other activities. So to explain what we mean by advertising, this covers things like newspaper, radio, social media, and direct mail to households. Whereas other activities covers like printing costs, undertaking monitoring and evaluation like bin audits or engagement activities, so like a stall at the local market. The details of each of these can be found in the guidelines, so please do have a look at those.

Laura Simic:

Now, what won't be funded? So you can't use the funding for any activities that don't use the campaign materials that we've developed. The funding can't be used on activities already funded by other government grants, maybe such as the SV council fund or the kerbside reform support fund. It can't be used for other project related costs, like capital purchases or maintenance or repairs, and can't be used for any retrospective project activities, so any activities prior to the establishment of the funding agreements. But again, all these details of what will and won't be funded are in the guidelines. So if you are unsure if something will be covered, you can also email through trial grants enquiries team for any clarification.

So the next section of the guidelines outlines the assessment criteria, which is in a what, how, why, who format, but I will come back and discuss this in more detail when we look at the application form.

So the next section of the guidelines is due diligence. SV will take a risk-based approach to assessing each applicant. Due diligence covers things like environment, safety and workplace breaches, fair work breaches, insurance, funding history and conflict of interest. There are some questions which cover this in the application form and we'll also be completing some checks behind the scenes. Again, all of it is fully detailed in the guidelines so please do review this section before completing your application.

Similar to due diligence, all the funding conditions are detailed in the guidelines. I certainly will not be reading out this slide. But as an attempt to summarise the funding conditions, you must agree to participate in a collaborative process to develop the funding agreement and agree to milestones under the funding agreement. The first milestone will involve us submitting a detailed communication and engagement plan and monitoring and evaluation plan. And then for subsequent milestones, you will have to provide evidence of your activities as per the plans and complete project update reports. And then the last milestone, you will need to complete a final monitoring and evaluation report. You will need to keep SV informed of any project changes as well. But again, all these details of the funding conditions are in the guidelines, so please review them before completing your application.

So, a quick run through of all the application steps. As I've mentioned way too many times, please review the guidelines, read through the terms and conditions of the funding agreement. There are links to these in the guidelines. Read and understand the terms of participating in grant programs, then you can create an account for SmartyGrants or log in if you've used the system before to start your application. You'll find a hyperlink to do this in the how to apply section of the guidelines. Attend the information session. So, well done. You can all tick that one off today. And then lastly, complete and submit your application before the deadline, which is midnight on Friday, the 17th of March, so just under five weeks time.

Okay. So the application form has seven sections and I swear it's not as overwhelming as this slide may look. The first section just has some instructions and a few questions to check your eligibility before progressing. The second section asks for your council details and contact details for the project. The third section asks for a project name, a timeline of the project, the type of project you'll be undertaking. Section four ask for a profile of your council. So that's where we'll ask you about your population, your density and your property data, details of your current waste and recycling services, along with your current contamination rates and participation and engagement rates, if you know them. And then we ask for the details of your new services and the dates that you may be looking to introduce them and what that approach will be, kerbside or drop-off or a mix.

And then section five is the assessment criteria, the what, how, why, and who, which we'll delve into in a second. And then section six is the due diligence, so again covering the things like insurance, compliance, conflict of interest. And then there's a checklist just to ensure you've covered off all the requirements and a declaration and signature regarding the funding conditions under section seven and submit. So pretty simple, right?

Laura Simic:

Okay. So let's go through the assessment criteria in more detail. I will outline each of the sections and some tips based on the first two rounds of applications. So the first criteria is what is the project you'll be delivering? So here, we want to know about the type of project. Are you introducing your service? Are you improving and promoting existing services? Maybe you already have 4-streams already, or is your project to pave the way for an easier future transition? Importantly, we want to know any associated details and dates that go with the type of project. We want to understand the focus and goals of your project, understand the campaign audiences.

So it will ask who is your primary audience for the campaign and who is your secondary audience as we want you to think about not just your entire community, which is typically your primary audience, but also any segments of your community that may need some extra attention and guidance. So these would be what we consider your secondary audiences. We ask you to explain any behavior change challenges in your community when it comes to recycling correctly. The answer to this question does contribute to that variable component of funding that I mentioned earlier. So it is important that you provide any really good examples or any evidence that you might have to substantiate any claims there of any recycling challenges in your community. But that's the first one.

And then the second one is how will the project be delivered? So here, we're asking you to outline the communication and engagement activities you plan to use to deliver the project. So this includes listing the activities you plan to undertake, the campaign materials you plan to use, and the communication channels as well. So as part of the funding agreement, you do have to submit a plan, which I mentioned. So that does mean the effort that you put into this section isn't wasted. It will help you to complete those plans as required under the funding agreement. Also, under the how section we do ask about how you'll be monitoring and evaluating your project. This is quite important because this project and the campaign, it's not just about information dissemination and education. What we are looking to really drive here is a behavior change. So you need to consider how you'll measure behavior change, how you'll develop a baseline metric which you'll use it to monitor and assess how your activities are performing and then how you'll report on that at the end of your campaign to show that it was successful.

Okay. So the third one there is why you've chosen this approach to deliver your project. So I guess you've told us what you're doing and how you're going to do it, but here we're looking for really clear rationale as to why you've chosen this approach and to really draw the link between your project type and the audience and channels and activities that you've outlined and explain why this approach will deliver a successful behavior change. So if you're introducing a new service, this response should focus on how the approach you're taking will successfully introduce the new service. So perhaps you've completed similar communication activities before that have been really successful or maybe you've completed a survey of your community and how they'd like to be engaged.

If you're not introducing a new service, then in this section you'd be outlining how your project approach would be paving the way for future introduction of a service in the future. So this might be due to some known challenges you are experiencing currently and how they're impacting your new service that you need to try and overcome, or again, perhaps you've completed a survey of your community and you're trying to overcome some poor community sentiment in relation to recycling. Yeah. So that's the why.

And then next, the last one there is the who, which is fairly straightforward here. We just want to understand who in your team will be responsible for delivering the project and do they have the capability and capacity and experience to do so?

So that's the assessment criteria. It is the most important part of the application form. I would like to reiterate that the effort you do put into this section will be useful when it comes to completing your plans under the funding agreement and the way that it has been designed does flow into these plans and reports.

Laura Simic:

Okay. Great. So, one last thing I'm going to mention, but almost the most important is the campaign guide. So we've developed a how-to guide to help you plan your project and your campaign. It aligns to the application form, so really, really important resource as you complete your application and also as you start to plan your campaign. It covers everything from the background and the development of the Sustainability Victoria program and campaign, including details on the extensive audience research that's been completed by SV, which may be helpful when you are considering your campaign audiences. And then there's also information about the campaign materials and resources which will be available for you and the guidance on how to use them. And then also support on developing the communication engagement plan and monitoring and evaluation plan, which will be helpful for you to keep in mind while you're completing the application form so you can leverage that information for the plans.

In the campaign guide, there is a section in the area about developing the plans where we mentioned campaign phases. So I just wanted to explain what we mean by phases. This infographic outlines the phases with the related timelines and focus areas. Noting however this would be an ideal campaign scenario if you are introducing services and we do understand that won't be possible or applicable to everyone. But ideally, you'd start the preparation phase at least six months before your new service was starting or you're starting your campaign. Then in the pre-transition phase, so around three months before the launch, you'd be engaging your community and providing some initial education and updates on the upcoming change. And then as you enter the transition phase, your new service would be commencing and that's where you'll be really informing your community on the specifics and what they need to start doing differently.

And then in the following three to six months in the post-transition phase, you'll be reviewing the new service, identifying any opportunities for improvement and really optimising your campaign to suit any challenges. And then in the ongoing phase, you'd be continuing the successful activities and targeting any areas of the community there that might still need some additional support. So further details on this and the planning process generally is all in the campaign guide. Again, we encourage you to review the campaign guide before starting your application, but hopefully when it does come to discussing your plans and the funding agreement, this will provide some context on the language of the campaign phases. It'll become somewhat familiar.

Alright. So just very last thing for me for now is to highlight the key dates for the fund. So applications opened last Monday, the 6th of February, and they will close six weeks later on February the 17th of March, sorry, on Friday, the 17th of March. Today is the information session. We will be aiming to notify successful applicants in May. The funding agreements are to be established within 30 days of the notification of outcome, so sometime in June. And then the project should commence after signing the funding agreement, but the latest date there, they must commence before 31st of December, 2024, the latest. And then projects must be fully completed and evaluated before 30 June, 2025. Of course, these dates are indicative and they may change. But that wraps up all the really fun details on the guidelines and the application process. I know that is a lot of information, but hopefully if you have already reviewed the guidelines, it is mostly familiar to you. So I'll now be passing to Rayna and she'll be running through the Small Acts, Big Impact Campaign and some of their campaign materials.

Rayna Mishra:

Hello, everyone. My name is Rayna, and I'm the team leader for activation and outreach at Sustainability Victoria, also on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country. I'll be taking you through the latest on the Small Acts, Big Impact Campaign and the support available for councils.

Firstly, it's important to reiterate the program is led by extensive research, insights and behavior change expertise. We've tested the creative with the public, and Small Acts, Big Impact concept and creative have tested really well and we're planning on doing more as we go along. We also have research and learnings from our previous campaigns, industry insights and best practice behavior change theory and expertise, which have all gone into the campaign's materials development. It is evidence-based and designed in consultation including with councils, Alpine Resorts and industry input.

Key things we found in our research that has shaped the campaign approach. There's a motivation gap driven by negative attitude. So Victorians have a low level of trust in the recycling system and industry. Many trust that they manage a recycling well in their own home, but 62% of Victorians trust that the recycling system in Victoria works. Much of this can be traced back to negative news media in 2019, '20. 53% of Victorians feel recycling isn't worth the effort because they aren't confident their recycling is being recycled. A quarter of Victorians think there is no point recycling correctly because others don't do the right thing.

There's a knowledge gap and a gap between good intentions and good practice in Victorian's recycling. Most Victorians, about 87%, are motivated to sort their waste and recycling correctly and most believe that sorting correctly is worth the effort to protect the environment, but despite there's around half still recycled items incorrectly recently and there's a bit of a capability gap. So waste and recycling actions are typically habitual and without conscious choices, and making a concerted effort to change is deprioritising people's busy lives. For many Victorians, putting the right thing in the right bin is a habit, about 84%, but when we tested their knowledge, 76% incorrectly reported which bin items should go into, suggesting there's a bit of a false confidence about what can be recycled. This may be caused by conflicting or changing information and differences in what can be recycled across the state which confuses people.

So this research shows us we need a multi-pronged approach to educating and changing behavior in Victorians. This slide that Laura summarised before shows how we're messaging the program across the state as SV compared to what is being delivered for councils to use. Of course, we need our materials to be flexible and modular so that can be adapted to suit the different localities and their waste and recycling configurations. The Small Acts, Big Impact Campaign does this by having broad statewide messaging delivered by SV to help Victorians reduce waste and recycle more. So we're talking about the why it matters, building the trust, social norms and storytelling. Very importantly, we have the local campaign materials delivered by councils and Alpine Resorts to talk about the important details relevant to your households. So that's the changes to local recycling system, helping people reduce contamination, other relevant local topics.

Just briefly, you might remember at the statewide level the launch of the Small Acts, Big Impact Campaign in May last year, which kicked off about five weeks of advertising including radio, TV, out-of-home press, digital and online video. Advertising was supported by a small act finder on our website, where people answered questions to find the small act for them, some new website content, social media and council and stakeholder engagement. The campaign focused on engaging Victorians the idea that their small act makes a big impact on Victoria's sustainable future and helping Victorians choose to make small changes to reduce waste and recycle more, but it also established the recognition of the Small Acts, Big Impact Campaign and that brand. It's starting to build the trust for Victorians in the recycling system and beginning to build social norms that reducing waste and recycling well is what we do in Victoria, which brings me to the Small Acts, Big Impact Campaign materials for councils to use. Again, as Laura mentioned, to access the fund, you must use these campaign materials for your campaign.

Our incredible asset library, which has all of the assets for councils and stakeholders, has well and truly ticked over to having more than 2,000 campaign materials. These include the list that you can see here for councils introducing a new service, as well as guides and templates to help plan for engagement and evaluation, which are also part of the fund milestones. The library is continuing to grow as we added materials for the systems transitions and mini campaigns on specific topics, such as batteries or FOGO contamination and reducing plastics.

We've also engaged with councils via our monthly forums last year and we meet monthly with those, introducing a new service. We've recorded and captured each of our capability building campaign lab series and those monthly forums and uploaded these to our asset library as an ongoing resource from councils to access so you can go back and rewatch them. We also focused on how to use the asset library and edit the campaign materials in our December forum, which is also available for you now. I wanted to flag that we are looking at upgrading our asset library tool this year, so keep an eye out for more information on that in a few months time.

So, these are some examples of the 200-plus individual illustrations that are available to use now and I'll show you how they can be used in context as part of the campaign materials as well. We have at least another hundred of these illustrations coming up for upload soon as well. This gives you an idea of the range of items we are covering in recycling and contamination and problematic items such as batteries. We also have illustrations of various people holding these items. Again, as you can see, we've got some classic recycling items, as well as problematic items like aerosols and waste minimisation in bringing a reusable bag.

Now, as an example for a four-bin system, I have here the outside panel of a four-bin DL flyer, but you can access many versions of this flyer including for three bins with a new FOGO glass service or with drop-off instead, basically the variations as per the stream list we showed you in the previous slide. Most of our campaign materials will be modularised, I mentioned. So we've provided this as an example PDF for 4-stream councils, but you can edit the text written here, especially the gray bits, put in your relevant details and logo. You can change out the illustrations if you don't like the ones that we've put in there. You can also edit and recolor the bin illustrations if what we've provided is different to the colored lids or bodies that you have now and you can swap that back in.

This would be an example of the inside panel of that DL flyer. Again, this is the PDF example that we've provided and we've given you the working files. You can edit the text. You can choose to put in different items. You can update the key contaminants in the no section that's below the bins there, and of course, most importantly, point residents to your website for more information. We then have a condensed version of this in a fridge magnet format. This one here is for three bins as you can see and also are not in any bin section. An example of bin and caddy stickers, again showing what is and is not accepted. Like I've said, these are modular so you can swap out any of the illustrations you like. You can edit the text to suit you. For example, for FOGO, if you are including compostable bags, then that's something that you can swap in there as well.

Here, we can see some examples of materials you might use to introduce a new glass bin. We have the illustration of the new bin and arms holding lidless items for recycling, but each of these items has a lids on version as well. We've got the cover of a DL flyer with three bins on it and a gift for use on social media, which is just nice and simple. We also provide social copy as well, so you can just copy-paste some text and add it to your social media platforms. Here, you can see assets for glass drop-off services including a large bin, items for disposal and an example gif for social media. Here we have some materials for FOGO services. We have illustrations of the bins and caddies. We also have an example of a bin tag, which can be used to reinforce correct recycling behaviors, and I'll show you you the alternatives shortly, but also have the social media gif for the new bin there as well.

An example of a press or print ad to introduce four bins. These have full page, half page, quarter page specifications as well available. There's an example of print ads or posters that you could use to clarify what is and isn't accepted into your FOGO bin after you've already introduced it or to address contamination. Some examples, social tiles to address contamination or reaffirm your FOGO education. To continue on the theme, these are examples of a bin audit postcard that you can leave in a letter box or a tag that can be placed on bins to specify incorrect recycling behavior. Again, you can edit these as well to suit you and to reflect the issues that you might be seeing in your area. Swap out the different options and illustrations there if you wish.

Finally, most materials come with a set of instructions you will see when you download the zip files. We also have a creative and visual style guide available for you and your graphic designers with advice on each different type of material and the colors, font, et cetera, to ensure consistency if you do edit the materials, or if you want to create new materials from what we've provided, which we are also encouraging and looking forward to seeing. Hopefully that gives you a bit of a taste of what to expect to see on the asset library. We also provide updates on when new materials are live in our monthly EDM as well. I'll finish off with a few videos before I hand back to Laura.

Video:

The way you recycle at home is changing for the better. You'll soon receive a new purple bin for glass only and a green bin for food and garden organics so that more of your recycling can be turned into things like new glass jars, mulch and compost. Get to know your new bin system because your small acts make a big impact on Victoria's sustainable future.

Checking you're using your green bin correctly can make a big impact. When you properly sort your food scraps and garden clippings, they can become things like compost. Your small acts make a big impact on Victoria's sustainable future.

The way you recycle glass has changed for the better. By taking your glass recycling to a new council drop-off point, it can become more things like new glass products. Your small acts make a big impact on Victoria's sustainable future.

Rayna Mishra:

Thank you.

Laura Simic:

Okay. Great. Thanks, Rayna. Okay. So I think you've heard plenty from us. We'll now jump into the Q&A. We've got some excellent questions coming in, so thank you very much. Again, it's just that little icon you can see on the screen. Feel free to go in and pop in any questions. But one of the questions we've got here, can the funding be used to promote a bin lid color changeover and does the SV Small Acts, Big Impact Campaign have materials for bin lid color changeover? So yes, the funding can be used to promote a bin lid color changeover. We appreciate that is a pretty significant change for the community sometimes, so absolutely the funding can be used to support that.

Do we have campaign materials specific for that? That is a really good question. I would say we haven't had a council so far under the fund come to us in relation to their campaign regarding that specifically, but our content team is developing new campaign materials all the time, so do frequently check the asset library. I'm pretty sure if Rayna mentioned it or not, but we're over 3,000 different campaign campaign materials on there. So if you do apply and you are using the funding for that, we will definitely be able to either develop campaign materials for you or be able to support you with the individual illustrations in order to support a bin lid color changeover project. So thank you for that question.

All right. Next one here, does the use of the campaign materials developed by SV mean exclusive use of only the SV campaign materials? Rayna, I might pass to you for that one.

Rayna Mishra:

No problem. So, essentially to use the funding for the grants that we are providing to you, you must use the SV campaign materials. If there is something that is missing on our library that you would like to use and don't have the capacity to create yourselves, please let us know because we want to make sure that there aren't any gaps in the materials that we are providing. As Laura mentioned though, we are not expecting to fund all of your campaign activities. So if this is something that you already have that you'll be using, it just means that you couldn't use that material and use the funding to actually push that out. I hope that answers your question.

Laura Simic:

Yeah. Thanks, Rayna. I would say this next question is quite similar. Again, with the campaign materials, can aspects be used in council collateral rather than the whole piece? So for example, if we have a specific requirement from our comms and marketing team, can we integrate aspects of the SV collateral?

Rayna Mishra:

I would say we are open to that. As a general route, I'd like to say that we want you to buy into our vision and the vision that we have for Victoria is that no matter where you go across the state, when you see something that looks like Small Acts, Big Impact, you're just going to think, "That's going to tell me about my recycling." So we want to encourage people to be using our illustrations. We've got a list of key messages and FAQs as well. So if you have something that's phrased differently or something, that's completely fine, but where possible, use our illustrations and use the materials that we're providing as a base for the comms that you'll be putting out. Get your comms teams on board and plan to use it is what I'm saying because we're hoping that every council across the state is going to be using Small Acts, Big Impact. So, join the team.

Laura Simic:

Great. Thanks, Rayna. There's a question here about is there a proforma for the monitoring and evaluation framework? Yeah. So we do have templates for the plans and reports required under the funding agreement. So there is a communication and engagement plan template, a monitoring evaluation plan template, project update reports templates, as well as the monitoring evaluation report template. Within these templates, there is guidance around how to do the monitoring and evaluation for your campaign, as well as we are here as a resource as well to support you in developing those too. So absolutely, in terms of proforma, we do try and keep it nice and loose so that it is suitable to your community and to your council, but there's definitely guidance and a framework there to help and support you to do that. Absolutely. Great question. All of those templates are on the asset library as well under the council assets, so feel free to jump in and have a look at those templates so that you can understand now as you're doing your application hopefully what that looks like.

We've got a comment here. Not all councils will be providing a purple lidded bin for glass. We are absolutely understand there may be different shapes and sizes of the service introduction. All of the campaign materials are designed to be modular and adaptable so that if you are not currently or won't be in the future introducing all 4-streams as a kerbside service across your community, you can adjust the campaign materials, so for example, the brochure that Rayna showed to remove one of those and spread out those other bins and campaign materials. So yes, we do understand that and we have designed assets for the different circumstances.

Let's have a look what the next question is. Can we edit the names on the bins, so for example, food and garden organics to food and green waste? I will pass to Rayna for that question because that is a good one.

Rayna Mishra:

Thank you. Yes, all of the materials are editable. So if you have been referring to your new service with a different name, then you can edit that on the bin. I will say however, the names that we have chosen in the asset library and where you'll find all of the templates, there's also a bit of a PDF there explaining the bin terminology and the research that we did behind that one. So we did ask the public about their preferred name, but also then tracked which of the names actually had better sorting behavior attached to it. So the naming system as well has a bit of research behind it, which is why we've named the way that we had. But yeah, feel free to check that out. If you do have a different name, that's fine, you can change the name on the bin.

Laura Simic:

Great. Thank you, Rayna. There's a question here if the council has applied and received funding for FOGO expansion, can they then apply for a glass behavior change funding as well? Unfortunately not. You can only apply and receive one grant under this fund. So we understand that councils may be staggering the instruction of their services. But yes, this fund does only provide for one grant for the councils. So if you've already received one, then that's what you'll be using the money for. But yeah, if you haven't, then you can, I guess, decide which service instruction you want to focus on. Or if you're doing both in the next two years, then you can focus on both.

Okay. Next question here, how do council show that an external project officer is essential to the project? Is there any specific criteria for this? Yes, that's it. That's a good question. It would be a discussion between the council and the project team in relation to what their campaign, sorry, their communication and engagement plan outlines, what their activities are going to be, what their resources look like. I wouldn't say there's any specific criteria for it. It's more of just a discussion about how it's essential or what the requirements are. Again, it still is important that 60% of the grant is spent on advertising. So in that circumstance, we would be looking then to ensure that depending on the amount that's spent on the project delivery officer, that there is still that 60% spent on advertising. Okay. So that looks like that question has come through twice. Thank you, Sherry.

Next question here, when can we expect the standard bin content list to be finalised? We're reluctant to further confuse our community by pushing out messaging that may not be in line with the incoming standards. Great question. I will pass to Rayna for that question. Thanks.

Rayna Mishra:

Thank you. I wish I had a clear answer for you. We are in touch with the Department of Environment team who are looking after the standardisation work. We know as much as you do that we're still looking at about mid to late this year for the standardisation to be published. They also have their own council engagement sessions as well, which we go along to as well. So if we do hear more and have further information with councils, we'll definitely be sending that out in our monthly EDMs.

Laura Simic:

Great. Thanks, Rayna. I think that aligns to a question that's popped in here as well about the SV collateral and in relation to drop-off or a collection or kerbside collection service and in relation to the draft regulations. Is there a danger, I guess, potentially about the SV collateral changing? What do we recommend for councils implementing a drop-off collection at this point in time?

Rayna Mishra:

Look, as far as I'm aware, at the moment, we don't have a date that those standardisations will mandate that councils must have a specific type of configuration. So the materials that we're providing we're hoping will be around for the next five or six years at least. So when councils are ready to introduce a service or change their configurations, it will be available. If that is your plan at the moment, we have drop-off materials for you to use. They're definitely available there. If that changes in future, I can't answer that, but we'll still have materials available that will help you educate your community on any changes that are coming up.

Laura Simic:

Great. Thank you, Rayna. There's a question here about are council scheduled to go to community consultation before any service changes? How accurate does the plan need to be in the grant application form? We absolutely understand that your service instruction may still be a little bit down the road and it may change based on your community consultation. If that's the case, that is absolutely okay. I would say complete the application form with what you assume or to the best of your knowledge, what your project and plan will be, and then there'll be an opportunity to refine that during the communication and engagement plan under the funding agreement. Those plans are likely to be flexible depending on where you're at with your journey. So yeah, we completely understand that and we would still definitely encourage you to apply, of course. Because this is the last round, it would be very important that even if you don't have 100% accurate information at this point in time, you still apply. Yeah, thank you for that question.

Okay. Next one here, could this funding be used to support an education program in local schools and link to bin audits in those neighborhoods to see if there has been an impact? That's a great question. This fund and the campaign more broadly is household focused. So unfortunately, we can't support doing an education program in schools in particular. It is definitely about targeting the household.

So the next question here, can we use the funds to use and promote the SABI waste avoidance materials to help achieve less waste per capita? Yes, good question. This fund would be predominantly supporting the introduction of a service, first and foremost. Perhaps you've already introduced 4-streams, and therefore you could use the waste avoidance materials for the fund instead. But ideally, we would be encouraging you to be introducing a service or to be doing a campaign to support the future introduction of a service and paving the way for that future introduction if you haven't already achieved 4-stream services. So, thank you for that question.

Has any councils from round one or two done successful campaign activities outside of the usual tactics? Good question. Outside of the usual tactics, I would say that some of them have done some interesting campaign activities. What we might consider is doing our next or a future campaign briefing, potentially looking at some unusual tactics to support the development of the council campaigns. So to explain, we were holding monthly campaign briefings last year. This year, we'll be going to quarterly campaign briefings and we're always interested in looking for new topics for campaign briefings. So perhaps discussing different tactics can be a future campaign briefing topic.

Next question here, for any new services being introduced in the early 2025, will we need to apply as the second eligibility criteria to pave the way for the future transition? Great question. Yes. In that circumstance, if your instruction of your service isn't until early 2025, then yes, you would be, I guess, applying to do a project to support that future instruction of the service and to pave the way for the future transition. The reason for that is because we want to ensure that you've got the time to be able to successfully monitor and evaluate the success of your campaign and your campaign activities. With the project having to end by 30 June, 2025, if you're only introducing a couple of months prior to that, then it would be just a bit too tight of a timeframe, but that's not to say that you paving the wave for the future transition wouldn't include, of course, as in it would still include supporting activities about the introduction of that service in early 2025.

Okay. So next question, do councils have to use a communication engagement plan and monitoring evaluation plan templates in the SV asset library or can councils use their own? Is there specific criteria required by SV for these documents? Yes, we do require you to use the templates that we have developed. We understand that councils might have their own planning documents and we would expect those to probably have more detail or be in a different format. For our purposes, we need to ensure a couple of, I guess, key aspects are consistent across the funding and aligned to the funding agreement, and that's why we have templates that we provide for you to use. We hope that it wouldn't be too much of a duplication of effort. They are fairly straightforward and easy to use based on our feedback from the round one and two councils.

So yes, that's our last question at the moment. I'll give it a minute or so. If anyone else has any other questions, please feel free to pop them in and we can answer them. Otherwise, we're going to be able to give you half an hour back in your calendar, which is always lovely. What I'll do is I'll just go through a bit of a summary and the key dates before we wrap up. So if you do have any additional questions, please do pop them in and we'll try and answer them before we close off.

Okay. A couple of last key points to take away, please do apply. This is the final round of the fund. It is not competitive. The money is already set aside for each council and Alpine Resort and all of you would be eligible regardless of where you are on your service journey. So you can apply to introduce your new service if you're introducing a service before 31 June, sorry, 31 December, 2024, or if you're not introducing a service by then, you can apply to improve your existing services and promote the recycling system. You must, of course, use the campaign materials developed by SV. The key dates there, once again, the fund open last Monday. It closes in mid-March. We're hoping to notify applicants in May and then finalise the funding agreements by the middle of the year. You will have two years then to complete your project, so that is by 30 June, 2025.

We just had a couple more questions come in. Thank you. Can we use the funds to encourage composting at home if we aren't introducing FOGO until 2025 or 2027? That is a very good and interesting question. I would probably say that is not the intent of this fund. We are encouraging the introduction of the new household recycling services under the policy, and therefore we probably wouldn't necessarily encourage composting, using the funding to compost at home instead. Yep.

There's another question here. Can the fund be used for translating SABI resources and messages? I'm assuming by translating, you might mean into different languages. We will be developing some CALD so some culturally and linguistically diverse campaign materials into... I think there's eight key languages that have been identified. I'm fairly sure they're outlined in the campaign guide. But if for some reason any of those languages or if for some reason you had languages that weren't already translated or particular campaign material not translated, you can use some of the 40% of the funding to translate campaign materials yourself if needed. Yeah.

Another question here, does it matter if we receive funding for the kerbside transition fund? No. So if you've received funding for the kerbside transition fund, that's predominantly to support the bin infrastructure. So the actual bins, it may have a small component for any engagement, or if it does have a small component for any communication or signage, it would be very important that you ensure that the activities that you use that fund for versus this fund are very different and used for different activities. In other words, don't double dip. But absolutely, we understand most councils, if not all councils, have received the kerbside transition fund so that is absolutely okay. Yes, different fund. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you for that question.

One more question here. What about the funding for paving the way services post 31, 2024? This is in line with preparing for the 4-streams. What about using the funding for paving the way services post 31, 2024? So I'm not too sure what that question is meaning. Potentially pop that through to the campaigns, sorry, the Grants.Enquiries@sustainability.vic.gov.au email, and we can try and provide some more clarity on your specific question. So, that's the last question at the moment.

Just on the very last slide has the links and contact details. So yeah, any questions about the fund or the application form or using SmartyGrants, please direct that to the Grants.Enquiries email address. Any questions about, I guess, the campaign materials or the SV campaign more broadly or about joining our mailing list, please email the campaigns@sustainability.vic.gov.au. We've put these links into the chat as well for the application form, the guidelines and the asset library and the campaign guide. Also, the Sustainability Victoria regional engagement leads, if you haven't already heard from them, they will be reaching out to support you with this fund and the application, so please feel free to get in touch with them in your area. If you haven't heard from them or if you have any other further questions too, their emails are their first name dot last name, @sustainability.vic gov.au.

So thanks very much for your engagement today and your wonderful questions. I hope you all have a really lovely day. There's no other questions coming in, so we will close it off there. I look forward to hopefully reviewing all of your applications in mid-March. Yeah, please don't hesitate to reach out to any of those contact emails if you have any further questions. Thank you to Rayna for co-presenting with me today as well. Thanks, everyone. Bye.