Developers and their contributing professionals and consultants are on notice. While the built environment has largely mastered the art of how to get to net zero – at least in theory and at least at the top end – the searchlights are now increasingly trained on how to protect and enhance nature.
Because it’s the built environment that is largely to blame for the erosion of our natural capital.
According to the Green Building Council of Australia, 63 per cent of Australia’s threatened species are in cities and up to 60 per cent of future urban land has not yet been built on.
Australia, it says, is among the worst countries globally for mammal extinctions, thanks to land-use change, resource extraction, pollution, climate change and invasive species that erode ecosystems. All of this weakens the natural carbon sinks, water systems and ecological functions we depend on.
In many ways, protecting and enhancing nature is the flip side of the sustainability coin that the built environment has worked on so hard for two to three decades. It’s also possibly the hardest.
The challenges will resonate with the early champions of green buildings: fragmented policy, slow development of biodiverse areas, low circularity, resource-intensive construction, and a long-standing underinvestment, in this case, in nature.
Now, after four years of extensive consultation led by its Nature Advisory Panel, the GBCA is turning its attention to nature with the new Nature Positive Roadmap, released on Tuesday on the eve of its big annual conference, Transform.
The document sets “clear targets and timeframes to help the built environment protect, restore and regenerate nature.”
Among the recommendations in the roadmap for a staged rollout are that planning policies “stop zoning of previously undeveloped land for development, introduce biodiversity net gain requirements into planning and promote higher density, urban infill and regeneration; that land use zoning and planning avoids high value and that moderate value biodiversity; and that density limits are increased to limit urban growth in undeveloped areas”.
Chief executive officer Davina Rooney said nature was today playing a much more central role in how developments are planned, delivered and assessed, not just to minimise harm, but to establish trajectories for new buildings that will help developers plan future projects in line with emerging expectations.
“This roadmap sets out a level of detail and commitment we have not seen before, with clear targets and timeframes that show what needs to change and allow progress to be tracked,” Rooney said.
The roadmap also translates the targets and goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework into practical guidance for the Australian built environment, she added.
Chief impact officer Jorge Chapa said the document was designed to help industry respond to rapidly evolving expectations around nature and how to “start acting today while also preparing for the standards that will evolve over time, including through future updates to Green Star”.
Circularity is key
A bigger focus on circularity was key, Chapa said.
“One of the key insights [of the roadmap] is the need to reduce pressure on nature by increasing circularity across the built environment – reusing materials, reducing waste and supporting more compact urban development.”
Nicole Yazbek-Martin, executive manager at the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute, said the nature roadmap was “a useful reference point for investors with a particular interest in nature-related considerations” and that it “supports current finance sector practice.”