WinZero: A community and solutions led response to climate impacts

When drought, bushfires and rising energy costs hit the Southern Highlands, WinZero emerged as a community-led catalyst turning climate-related stress into local action, connection and wellbeing. 

‘Being a trusted source is one of the key benefits of a community group like ours.’  

Derek White, Secretary, WinZero

The challenge

WinZero (Wingecarribee Net Zero Carbon Emissions) was formed in the Southern Highlands region in the wake of the 2019-20 drought and bushfires.  

Community members were experiencing climate impacts first-hand. Initial efforts focused on accelerating local council action, but the group soon recognised a broader challenge: top-down approaches were disconnected from community needs, while individuals and small businesses lacked clear, practical pathways to adapt, reduce emissions and lower costs.  

Over the past few years WinZero has risen to this challenge - with community-led, place-specific solutions that have been adopted, and can be further scaled.

The response: Innovative approaches

WinZero operates as a non-profit, community-led backbone for climate action. Its model emphasises inclusion, practical education and convening across silos (community groups, business, education, and three tiers of government).

Key innovations include:

• Virtual Energy Network (VEN): A software-enabled marketplace that enables local solar producers to sell excess generation to local consumers at agreed prices. The model particularly benefits daytime, energy-intensive small businesses that lease premises and can’t install solar.
• Community learning and support: Growing a VEN participant group (43 people by October 2025) and developing plain-language communications to demystify bills, meters and tariffs.
• Partnerships for scale and proof: Collaboration with Deakin University and the University of Queensland with support funding from Energy Consumers Australia to test VEN impacts on affordability, local use of local electrons, and avoid ‘poles and wires’ costs. Forming links with other community groups allow WinZero to benefit more people, particularly those suffering energy poverty.  
• Regional Convening: WinZero co-convenes a regional ‘Highlands Homegrown Economy’ network that unites business, academia, community, finance and all levels of government. WinZero provides ongoing umbrella coordination for economic development and enterprise collaboration, with partners and collaborators that include BDCU Collective Impact, Challenge Southern Highlands, the Food Logistics Hub and Regen Labs.

Positive impacts: Early signs of transformation and adaptation

WinZero is creating change in its region. Here’s what it looks like:

• Energy costs and access: Early results from the VEN show that it creates the most value for daytime, high-load small businesses that can’t host solar – improving affordability and control over energy costs while rewarding local solar generators.
• Social and institutional capital: WinZero has charity status, so it can help channel grant funding to local projects. The trust built across 13-plus partner organisations has, in turn, drawn interest from local, state and national government leaders and agencies increasingly willing to help organise more support and resources.
• Ecological coordination: By acting as an ‘umbrella’ convener, WinZero amplifies the reach of multiple habitat, corridor and biodiversity efforts, and helps align local and state government resources with community priorities.
• Knowledge and skills: Volunteer upskilling, peer-to-peer support and youth-focused succession efforts are extending leadership capacity beyond the founding team.
• Systems learning: University and business partnerships are generating evidence on micro-grids, energy poverty alleviation and the benefits of local energy use to inform policy and investment.

Building capital across multiple dimensions

Regional businesses often play an outsized role in driving transformational adaptation by responding to the needs of place and creating value that extends far beyond jobs or profit. Much of this impact is often invisible or unacknowledged, but applying the Eight Forms of Capital framework reveals how WinZero is contributing to the vitality of its region. 

Looking ahead

WinZero’s immediate focus is expanding the Virtual Energy Network to include social-housing tenants and other households experiencing energy affordability stress. It also aims to secure long-term funding for the Highlands Homegrown Economy program, delivered in partnership with Regen Labs, to continue strengthening local collaboration.

In the long run, WinZero envisions being part of a region where collaboration becomes a local norm, as businesses, government agencies and citizens co-design solutions like the Highlands Homegrown Economy. Financing logic tilts toward community-led projects with clear evidence pathways, making it easier for agencies to fund what works. And, over time, energy governance re-localises as micro-grids and software-defined exchanges prioritise local electrons, reduce infrastructure pressure, and become part of a stronger, more resilient social fabric.  

Why this business matters for regenerative transformation

WinZero shows how a trusted, volunteer-led backbone organisation can convert climate challenges into practical outcomes and investable solutions by lowering bills, strengthening social fabric, enhancing local economies and producing rigorous evidence that reshapes policy and market rules.  

It’s a template for regions seeking resilient, community-led adaptation at scale. It’s a story that demonstrates when communities lead, adaptation can accelerate and local economies grow stronger in the process. 

For Gaye White, WinZero’s Deputy Chair, responsiveness is the essence of resilience:

‘If we see a need, we just get on and do it. That speed, care and willingness to act is what keeps community resilience alive.’

This case study is part of a series sharing inspiring examples of regional enterprise and their positive impacts across multiple dimensions, using the Eight Forms of Capital framework.