News in brief: September

Global Property Linked Finance initiative launches

25 September: The Global Property Linked Finance Initiative was launched with the support of Australia’s PLF (property linked finance) Accelerator. The platform hopes to unify similar minded organisations to help unlock $US 34 ($A 51) trillion in private capital to transition building stock across the globe to net zero and climate resilience by 2050.

PLF is a mechanism that allows households and businesses to implement sustainable upgrades to their homes and buildings through a loan. The loan is stipulated by Environmental Upgrade Agreements (EUAs) – a contract between property owners, lenders, and councils, where repayments are tied to the property via council rates – and residents can immediately benefit from lower energy bills and more resilient homes. 

The global initiative is also backed by organisations such as Green Finance Institute, Climate Bonds Initiative, Amalgamated Bank, C-PACE Alliance, C40, Energy Efficiency Hub, Global ABC, IFC, IIGCC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nuveen Green Capital, RICS, and World GBC.

Ingham Property’s new industrial estate to become the nation’s largest solar rooftop farm

Ingham Property Group has started work on its $1 billion, 182-hectare industrial estate, which once complete will house what it said is Australia’s largest rooftop solar farm, which will generate up to 70 megawatts – enough to power 50,000 Australian homes.

The estate will be in the upcoming Western Sydney Aerotropolis and surround the city of Bradfield and the Western Sydney International Airport. The energy generated through the solar farm will feed into the Aerotropolis’s distribution network, meaning surrounding residents can access cheaper, cleaner power with no transmission tariff.

The estate will deliver up to 750,000 square metres of industrial facilities and office space over the next three to five years and is estimated to employ up to 12,500 people at full capacity.

The estate’s approved master plan also contains a “complying development” certificate allowing for accelerated approvals for proposals that fit within 100,000 square metres and a 52.5 metre height limit. The company said this will allow projects to come online a year or more sooner than comparable sites in Queensland or Victoria.

The first building to be built will be a 90,000 sq m automated distribution centre for ALDI’s NSW operations, which will be 500 m long and just under 50 m in height, which is twice as tall as the main terminal of the new airport.

NSW Government opens its $1 billion finance guarantee for builders

The NSW government has opened an expression of interest for its pre-sale finance guarantee program, which will see the government become a guarantor on the pre-sale of up to 50 per cent of the dwellings on each project.

The scheme will support mid tier developers with approval for low to medium density residential projects, with each home valued up to $2 million each, with support ranging from $5 million to $50 million per project. Property and Development NSW will assess the developers for “credibility, capacity and capability”, and once approved, the developers must start building within six months.

Typically, developers only get lending approval for a project once they hit around 80 per cent of pre-sales.

According to the government, once homes are sold and the projects are completed, the builders can either:

• rescind the commitment, which will release the funds for other developers to access
• call on the guarantee, where homes will then be purchased by the NSW government at a discounted rate and either rented or sold into the market

McNab nabs Powershift

Construction and development firm McNab flagged a significant investment in mobile battery solution providers Powershift.

The battery providers operate a fleet of mobile battery systems that are capable of powering entire construction sites, including cranes, hoists, site sheds and multiple items of plant. The fleet can also help projects keep moving even when the grid is not yet available.

The technology can be utilised to replace traditional diesel generators with clean, quiet, and rapidly deployable energy systems, which it said would reduce fuel use and emissions by up to 75 per cent.

McNab chief executive Kunjan Ganatra said his company was committed to ESG leadership and long-term industry transformation and has done a lot of research as a result. He said his company found it more effective to partner with a company that is already delivering solutions across Australia, and they have seen the benefits of using the mobile units firsthand, such as cost savings, quieter working environments and cleaner energy use.

The units are now deployed across Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands to power infrastructure projects, manufacturing facilities, islands and mobile plants, as well as helping with grid stabilisation.

Evie Networks’ new debt facility marks a new age of infrastructure

EV charging provider, Evie Networks, has secured a $50 million senior debt facility with infrastructure specialist fund manager Infradebt. The transaction is the first non recourse (secured by collateral only) senior debt facility secured for public fast charging.

Chief executive Chris Mills said the loan signals that public EV charging will now be recognised as mainstream national infrastructure and showed investors are now “moving beyond traditional assets” and backing this new infrastructure asset class.

It signalled “growing institutional confidence in EV charging as a mature, investable asset class.”

Regional industrial emission reduction funding opens

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has opened a third round of its Industrial Transformation Stream Program, with $180 million available to support emission reduction of regional industrial facilities across Australia.

The program is aimed at significant energy users in regional areas to help transform operations to support the nation’s net zero goals. CEO Darren Miller said the funding will help businesses that aren’t sure where to start to take the first step. Some examples include electrifying cold storage at a meat processing facility, implementing thermal energy storage technology or recovering biogas from dairy waste.

Jobs

The Victorian Government has appointed Kate Houghton as the new Secretary leading its Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA).

Houghton is currently serving as the Secretary at the Department of Justice and Community Safety. She previously led the water and catchments group as deputy secretary and the Environment Policy Division as executive director at DEECA. She was also awarded the Public Service Medal in recognition of her contribution to the nation’s response to COVID-19. Houghton takes over from John Bradley, who wrote that he will be stepping down from his role in July in an internal email.

The NSW government has appointed Darren Cleary as its new Sydney Water CEO, starting 17 November.

Cleary will depart from his role as managing director of Hunter Water, where he has been an executive for almost 13 years. During his time, he drove investments into the Belmont Desalination plant, created the Lower Hunter Security plan and delivered a $1 billion capital program to improve water security in the region.

Australia sets new emission targets

18 September: The federal government announced on Thursday that it will set the nation’s 2035 climate target at between 62 and 70 per cent reduction from 2005, at the advice of the Climate Change Authority.

The target will form the basis for the nation’s “nationally determined contribution” as part of its commitment to the Paris Agreement. The signatories agreed that each contribution must be more ambitious than the last and reflect each country’s “highest possible ambition.” The current national target for Australia is a 47 per cent reduction by 2030 from 2005.

Reactions ranged from experts calling it a “sliding doors moment on climate” to the Climate Council saying that Australia would need a “net zero target for 2035” in order to have a strong chance of meeting the goal of keeping heating below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – after which climate impacts will become “catastrophic and severe”.

The organisation said that while 70 per cent is closer to what is needed to keep Australians safe, 62 per cent “falls dangerously short” in protecting Australians and would align to more than 2 per cent global warming – saying it’s “too timid for the times.”

Others agreed with the sentiment. Byron Fay, executive director of Climate 200, said the target was inconsistent with science and that the majority of Australians want targets of at least 75 per cent.

“Like Anthony Albanese, Tony Abbot announced a range, too. The top end was PR, and the bottom was what we actually got,” Fay said. The target was a “slap in the face to the Australians living on the growing frontlines of the climate crisis”

If you are feeling angry, upset or fired up, you’re not alone, he said.

Robots to take over construction labour

Monash University researchers are pushing for the industry to embrace the help of robots to overcome construction industry issues such as low productivity, labour shortages and high injury rates.

Researchers have developed a smart planning system that can take human fatigue into account and determine what tasks the robots can handle and what should be left to human workers.

Results from a simulation of assembling a timber floor frame for a three-bedroom unit, which was broken into 71 tasks, showed that the integration of these robots had made construction more efficient and eased physical demands on human workers.

The simulation data was taken from real data collected by the university’s mobile robot and robot arm, and measured task completion time, productivity and physical fatigue.

Federal government invests $1.1billion in low carbon fuels

The federal government has flagged its new 10 year long Cleaner Fuels Program, and alongside it, a $1.1 billion investment to produce cleaner, low carbon liquid fuels for nets, ships, construction machines and freight vehicles.

In a statement, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the first production of “drop in” cleaner fuel substitution is estimated to be before 2029. The government said the nation already has feedstock ingredients needed for fuel alternatives such as canola, sugarcane, sugar and waste – in fact, the nation exports nearly $4 billion of feedstock such as canola and tallow.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) estimates the low-carbon fuel industry could be worth $36 billion by 2050 if it taps into local refining capabilities.

The Australian Logistics Council not only gave the government accolades for the move, but it also said its members are prepared to adopt low carbon fuels at scale. Chief executive Dr Hermione Parsons said “drop in” replacements would help companies avoid costly fleet replacement while still cutting lifecycle emissions by 80 per cent compared to conventional diesel and jet fuel.

Melbourne is rising to become the data centre capital

As many experts predicted, Melbourne has stepped out of Sydney’s shadows and is on the rise to become the capital city for data centres, as the latest data centre report from property consultancy Knight Frank finds.

The report finds that the need for land and power constraints has pushed major data centre players down south, with supply in Melbourne nearly tripled in the past year to 4.7 gigawatts as of Q2 2025.

All four major US providers, AWS, Microsoft, Google and Oracle now have cloud regions based in the city, with 95 per cent of colocation (rental servers and space) now being taken up by AI workloads.

Jobs

Australian Community Housing, consisting of the merged Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) and PowerHousing Australia, has appointed Mark Degotardi as its inaugural CEO.

Degotardi was previously the CEO of CHIA before its merger. In the past, Degotardi has also been chief executive at the Customer Owned Bank Association as well as Director for the World Council of Credit Unions.

Title Renewables has appointed Sean Macken as its head of government relations and media.

Macken had a long history in government advisory, having previously been senior policy advisor to Clare O’Neil, Housing and Homelessness Minister, as well as advisor to Julie Collins, the Housing and Small Business Minister at the time. He had also been long time strategic advisor for Committee for Sydney.

Adam Bandt takes up the head of Australian Conservation Foundation

11 September: Former Greens leader Adam Bandt has landed a gig that couldn’t be better designed for him – as chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation. Starting January 2026, Bandt will take over from Kelly O’Shanassy, who has led the organisation for 11 years.

O’Shanassy had flagged that she would step down from the role earlier in June, saying “unlike solar and wind, CEO energy is not renewable, and it’s time for a break.”

The foundation board chair, Ros Harvey, said Bandt’s appointment was “unanimously supported” as the “right person to lead ACF to its next chapter.”

Harvey said the board had screened more than 300 candidates, including those from many countries. Ultimately, Bandt had “the vision, the bravery and the experience” to tackle the “challenging years ahead as Australia grapples with devastating climate change and accelerating nature destruction.

“Hard times require bold leadership.”

Bandt further added that “this could be the best parliament ever for nature and climate” and that he and the organisation will set politicians “a test we hope they meet.”

The organisation said that Bandt will play no further role in the Greens.

The great timber debate continues

The latest volley in the debate between the conservationists and the timber supporters comes after the NSW government declared the Great Koala National Park would be declared in about 12 months. It will comprise around 476,000 hectares on the NSW Mid North Coast. The state government said it would also invest $140 million, with $60 million of that total to go towards funding the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.

It is also offering support packages for the six timber mills in the region, which is expected to impact between 200 and 300 jobs.

The announcement was a nail in the coffin of timber harvesting, with an immediate moratorium effected.

Timber Queensland reacted by coming out swinging against the decision, arguing it has evidence that “sustainable timber harvesting” creates “long term carbon benefits by substituting steel and concrete”, which it argues stores carbon in products.

The organisation was quick to rally the Queensland and Tasmanian governments to its cause, saying both “reject this method at a state level.”

Meanwhile, conservation groups such as the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Forum, the Nature Conservation Council, the Wilderness Society and Outdoors NSW & ACT have voiced their support by joining the NSW government in an official statement.

What we’re reading

Even though Trump is wreaking havoc on the climate fight and intimidating corporate far and wide, Walmart has some good news and bad news, according to Trellis.

The bad news is that the company, known as the world’s largest retailer, won’t meet its 2025 goal of cutting carbon footprint from its retail operations by 35 per cent and likely won’t meet its 65 per cent reduction pledge by 2030. On top of this, the company logged a 1.1 per cent year-over-year increase in 2024 for both Scope 1 and 2 emissions, going up to 15.7 million metric tons of greenhouse gases.

But the company’s chief sustainability officer and vice president Kathleen McLaughlin said she was “optimistic” that the company had cumulatively reduced its carbon footprint by 18.1 per cent since 2015 – which is “a significant cut” from where it started.

She said longer-term goals require partnerships, and different groups have different views on how to achieve outcomes. The company said it has cut down on “emissions intensity” – which is the ratio of operational emissions per million dollars of revenue- by 47.4 per cent over the past 10 years, despite revenue roughly growing 40 per cent.  Read more here.

Inhabit opens Adelaide office

Hong Kong based design firm Inhabit is opening a new Adelaide office to strengthen its presence in Australia, which it says will also extend its expertise in façades and sustainable design to its clients in South Australia.

The new office will be led by façade design manager Michael Canlas, who is currently based in Melbourne. Prior to his current position, Canlas was a senior façade consultant and assistant department head for the Singaporean engineering conglomerate, Meinhardt Group, while based in Manila.

The firm is further owned by a parent company, French engineering firm Egis Group.

ISPT receives CAF’s first portfolio certification

3 September: Since TFE last covered the Cleaning Accountability Framework last year, ISPT has this month achieved full CAF certification across its portfolio, making it the first to receive this newly created portfolio certification.

This means it received the highest assurance that its cleaning services meet the strict standards in CAF, ensuring fair labour practices and responsible procurement across the entire supply chain.

Last year, CAF CEO Miriam Thompson told TFE that the portfolio assessment was groundbreaking and will allow the framework to “scale up significantly” as previously assessments were done on a building by building basis. The “forensic” process would involve “deep assessments” including worker engagement, paid time meetings with cleaners and the union to “go beyond the garden variety underpayment to more serious things”.

Since 2019, the Modern Slavery Act stipulates that companies with a consolidated revenue of more than $100 million must undertake mandatory reporting obligations, leading to a surge in interest in achieving CAF certifications. Prior to its establishment, Thompson said the industry was marked by toxicity, few rights and low wages from lowball contracts that did not meet fair employment standards.

Three government organisations join forces to advance manufacturing

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), the Bradfield Development Authority (BDA), and the Advanced Manufacturing Readiness Facility (AMRF) have signed collaboration agreements.  The agreement will include sharing industry trends and insights, convening industry briefings and events, and creating a pipeline of referrals for new and emerging Australian manufacturers.  

Under the agreement, businesses deemed with “high potential” will be able to test and improve ideas and prototypes at the manufacturing facility to help scale, commercialise and become competitive in the manufacturing supply chain. The sector would also benefit from more “joined up support” from the government, the organisations said.

The collaboration will also connect emerging manufacturers with the newest innovation cluster in Bradfield City, allowing them access to expert technical support and potential funding pathways.

BDA chair Jennifer Westacott said the partnership will link industry with capital from the NRFC as well as the expertise and infrastructure required, which will help position Australia as a leader in advanced manufacturing.

Dirt to data at Boolah regenerative trial farms

Boolah trial farm, one of Australia’s largest commercial-scale regenerative trial farms, based in Pallamallawa, a rural village in north west NSW, is opening its gates for a farm field day on 10 September.

The family run agricultural business that promotes its Regen4real framework, provides agricultural services and runs connected farms that integrate regenerative farming practices and circular economy principles in its operations – educating others on its resilient and environmentally responsible model.

This year, the event features the theme “dirt to data”.

Call for policy in renewable recycling

The Renewable Energy Alliance, known as RE-Alliance has become the latest to join a coalition of around 60 organisations urging the Australian government to establish a mandatory scheme for solar panel recycling during this parliamentary term.

The RE-Alliance has recently published a framework that sets out actions for industry and government on what to do with retirement age renewable technologies. A joint statement, published by the Smart Energy Council, saw the participation of groups such as the Climate Council, Green Building Council Australia, Fortescue, Veolia, Engineers Australia, Solar Citizens, MRA Consulting Group and Clean Energy Investor Group.

BLP launches Singapore branch

Architects Billard Leece Partnership (BLP) has launched a new branch in Singapore – BLP Asia. The firm said the expansion is part of its long term commitment to the Asian market, following its delivery of the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital and the North District Hospital, also in Hong Kong. It says the branch allows for better placement to meet Asia’s healthcare infrastructure needs.

Managing director Tara Veldman said Singapore was a “natural gateway” for growth in Asia and her firm will be delivering “boundary pushing” designs to health, science and technology, education and social infrastructures in the Asia region.

US climate fight takes a legal hit

International news: The attacks on climate and wind back of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US continues. The most recent volley comes from the legal system that backed the Trump administration’s freeze of $16 ($A24) billion in funds granted by the Environmental Protection Agency for solar and retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency.

According to The New York Times, a Trump appointed administrator at the Environment Protection Agency “called for the return of the money, suggesting, without providing evidence, that the grants were vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse.”

Beth Bafford, chief executive of Climate United, which was awarded nearly $7 billion in grants, told the publication that the decision was not the end of the road.

“While we are disappointed by the panel’s decision,” she said, “we stand firm on the merits of our case. The EPA unlawfully froze and terminated funds that were legally obligated and disbursed.”

What we are reading

The University of Melbourne is pausing its participation in Fisherman’s Bend for at least five years, due to project delays and funding constraints.

The university had paid $49.8 million for 7.2 hectares of the 480 hectare redevelopment, which was slated to become the nation’s leading precinct for advanced manufacturing, design, engineering and technology, according to The AFR.

The decision comes after a June report by the Victorian Auditor General found key planning documents were still in drafts or incomplete six years after the original framework was released, and that project completion has now been pushed back to 2055.

Despite a $275 million surplus last year, the university said it had an operating deficit of $99 million in 2024, as well as $71 million in 2023, and student caps had affected the university’s ability to continue to fund the project. The university’s plan originally included a campus with advanced defence technology facilities, hydrodynamics and aerodynamics labs, robotics and autonomous systems labs, and a geotechnical testing centre. Read more here.

It is also of note that Marcus Westbury, chief executive of Fishermans Bend Innovation Diversity Experimentation and Activation, known as FB IDEA, has announced on social media that he was leaving the outlet to return to working as an independent consultant.

Government opens tenders for WA clean power

The federal government has opened two new capacity investment scheme tenders in Western Australia for renewable energy.

Announced in a joint statement between Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, Assistant Climate Change and Energy Minister Josh Wilson and WA Energy and Decarbonisation Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson, the latest round is estimated to unlock $4 billion of additional private investment into the wholesale electricity market in WA.

Upon delivery, the tender will add 1.6 gigawatts of clean renewable generation, along with another 2.4 gigawatt-hours of clean dispatchable energy to the market. This will power more than 900,000 households annually and generate enough storage to power the peak load of 550,000 households in four hours.

Proponents will be assessed on deliverability, value for money, contribution to grid reliability, strength of engagement with First Nations communities and commitments to deliver shared benefits. Bidding closes 7 November. More information available here.