As the energy grid decarbonises, the proportion of carbon associated with the materials used to construct and maintain buildings will become increasingly important in the fight against carbon. For designers, specifiers and delivery teams to achieve meaningful reductions in embodied carbon, credible information on the carbon footprint of products will therefore be essential.
Siniat, a flagship brand of the global group Etex, is stepping up to this challenge, with a number of initiatives that will enable the local industry to make more sustainable procurement choices.
One of these is the Opt2Act® program, which can reduce the embodied emissions or upfront carbon of an overall build by up to 7 per cent using Siniat’s certified carbon neutral plasterboard and metal framing products. The opted-in products are certified carbon neutral under the Climate Active.
“Designers and contractors are increasingly looking at ways to reduce the upfront carbon of a build and Opt2Act offers a simple way to help them achieve that,” explains Siniat’s national architectural manager Nazli Almasirad.
To utilise the Opt2Act program, architects or project procurement managers specify Siniat Opt2Act materials at the design stage. Siniat then works with the supplier who provides the products to the project site, determining the quantities of materials used, and procure offsets eligible under the Climate Active Carbon Neutral Standard that also meet Siniat’s offsets strategy.
An independent benchmarking report by Slattery found there are measurable project embodied carbon reductions, for example, of around 6.91 per cent upfront carbon reduction for a typical office fitout. This comes without a significant impost on project budgets, with Slattery estimating the overall cost for the sample fitout project increased by only 0.016 per cent.
Decarbonisation during production
Upfront carbon encompasses the emissions associated with the production, manufacturing, and transportation of materials used in the construction or manufacturing of a product or infrastructure. It represents the carbon footprint incurred before the occupants even walk through the door of a building.
Siniat’s approach to carbon neutral products has included reducing the Scope 1 (on-site), Scope 2 (procured energy) and the Scope 3 (indirect) emissions associated with the manufacturing process. For starters, Etex has recently flicked the switch on an installation of 1924 solar panels on the Siniat plasterboard plant in Matraville, NSW. The solar is expected to provide around 15 per cent of the plant’s operational electricity needs, reducing the site’s CO2e emissions by about 727 t, or 1.2 per cent of Etex’s national operations emissions (gate-to-gate).
Solar PV to the tune of around 3000 panels has also been installed on the company’s Altona plasterboard plant in Melbourne, with the 1.45MW system providing 19.4 per cent of the plant’s electricity demand over 12 months. Globally Etex has set a target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions intensity (CO2e emissions of Scopes 1 and 2) by 35 per cent by 2030, compared to a 2018 baseline. The company has also set ambitious global targets of using more than 20% of circular input as raw materials, reducing plastic packaging by 20% and using recyclable plastic only, zero waste sent to landfill and investing 50% of their innovation resources to sustainability.
EPDs are part of the solution
In an industry where project teams are looking for facts, metrics and appropriate documentation to verify products, Siniat is answering the call through creating registered EPDs (environmental product declarations) for a range of their plasterboard and steel framing products.
The EPDs are based on ISO Standard 14025 and the scientific principles of lifecycle assessment (LCA).
“As the awareness of sustainable building products and practices grows, we are seeing more customers requesting EPDs during all stages of the construction process,” says Kathryn Walker, Etex regional EHS and sustainability manager, APAC.
“We regard EPDs as an important part of our commitment to being a sustainable manufacturer. There are many manufacturers who make sustainability claims, but only an EPD can provide accurate, transparent and verified information about a product. EPDs allow customers to access comparable data, and to gain insight into all the relevant environmental information about the product’s life-cycle environmental impact.”
The EPDs also support project teams meeting requirements for product documentation for rating tools including the Green Building Council of Australia’s Green Star certification scheme.
Similarly, the Opt2Act® program addresses another aspect of these tools – namely, requirements for reductions in upfront embodied carbon compared to a conventional reference building. Both 5 Star Green Star and 6 Star Green Star require 20 per cent upfront carbon reduction, and from 2026 4 Star Green Star will also require the same benchmark.
Clearly, materials and products are ready to be an engine for positive change.
“We can see that the conversation is starting to shift from operational carbon to upfront carbon,” Nazli says. “Today, at least 25 per cent of a typical building’s emissions occur during the upfront carbon stage which cannot be changed once the building is constructed as these emissions are already locked in.”
