Moving to a low-emission built environment on both sides of the Tasman will help both Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand meet one of their toughest challenges – reducing climate change by cutting back emissions of greenhouse gases.
In this article, we look at how the two countries’ emissions reduction plans (ERPs) can help businesses in the building and construction industries reduce emissions faster.
We also set out what we hope to see in a new Australian ERP.
In a second article, we will consider how trans-Tasman cooperation, common tools and reporting, and learning from one another will help businesses contribute to the ERP goals.
The two countries’ emissions reduction plans (ERPs)
ERPs are the government strategies and policies that direct climate action in each country to meet national emissions targets and the 2015 Paris Agreement. In both countries, governments aim to reach net zero emissions in 2050.
The New Zealand government released its ERP in May 2022. The ERP covers three time periods, each with its own emissions budget (2022 to 2025, 2026 to 2030, 2031 to 2035). The target for 2030 is to reduce emissions 50 per cent on the base year, 2005.
A change of Federal government means Australia is currently between ERPs. The Morrison government’s plan, launched in 2021, appears on the website of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources with a rider at the top: “This plan was published before May 2022 under the previous Australian government.”
The Albanese government is likely to launch a new plan. We are encouraged to see that the prime minister has pledged to raise Australia’s target for 2030. The new target: reduce emissions by 43 per cent on the 2005 base. (The Morrison government’s target was a 26 to 28 per cent reduction on this base.)
The New Zealand ERP and the built environment
In New Zealand, the government has the building and construction industry firmly in its sights. For example, the New Zealand ERP aims to:
- reduce the embodied carbon of construction materials through innovation and regulation
- speed up the shift to low-emissions buildings by using data and promoting low-emissions design, materials and practices
- make buildings (both existing and new) more energy-efficient
- support the workforce’s transition to make sure the sector can adapt to the new low-emissions ways of working
- improve planning rules and infrastructure in the built environment through a mix of funding, financing, data, innovation and policies
The plan also addresses emissions in industries that feature heavily in the building and construction industry’s value chain. These include the waste, freight, energy and forestry industries.
The plan specifically addresses construction and demolition waste. It offers support for businesses moving to circular economy business models.
Incentives for EPDs?
The New Zealand Plan hints at incentives to encourage more manufacturers to produce environmental product declarations (EPDs).
For manufacturers of construction products, EPDs complement the rating systems that many of their customers have signed up to. These rating systems include the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC), the Infrastructure Sustainability Council (ISC), the National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) and its New Zealand counterpart (NABERSNZ).
What we hope to see in the Aussie ERP
The Morrison plan made investing in and deploying low-emissions technologies central to its 2021 ERP. We would like (and expect) to see the new government launch a broader plan. Technology will be important, but it is one tool of many that will make a difference.
We hope Australia’s new ERP will make tackling the embodied carbon and operational carbon associated with buildings and infrastructure a priority. We would like to see the plan foster the collaborative spirit in Australia’s built environment industry, which is already strong.
Supporting the leadership that the two Green Building Councils, ISC, NABERS and GRESB are showing is vital too. We also hope the government will support industry and promote change through planning instruments and government procurement.
We would welcome more focus on tools such as the circular economy, which can address emissions at their source, through product design and circular business models.
As major industries such as transport and industry contribute heavily to the construction industry’s value chain, we hope the plan will encourage these industries to reduce emissions too.
Change is simmering! We hope the Australian government will step up and partner with the industry to make it reach the boil.
