Development Victoria is setting new standards for sustainable construction and deconstruction, driven by its goal of achieving carbon neutrality for all projects by 2030.
From the Docklands precinct to the Melbourne Arts Precinct, Development Victoria continues to help evolve and redefine the state’s urban landscapes. But the organisation is also contributing to transforming how the construction industry approaches sustainability.
In response to the Victorian Climate Change Act 2017, which sets out the state’s target to achieve net zero by 2045, Development Victoria has established its own target of achieving carbon neutrality across all its projects by 2030.
The organisation’s ambitious goal encompasses all scopes of carbon emissions, focusing on proactive collaboration with contractors and suppliers throughout the delivery chain.
Development Victoria Sustainability Director, Clare Parry, said, “We have a fairly holistic sustainability strategy, and one of the things we’re addressing is complete resilience of our projects, including climate, but carbon as well.
“We’re working really hard to attack that from every angle and collaborating with all of our partners throughout the delivery cycle. It means that everybody in that delivery chain needs to work hard to reduce the carbon footprint, and we need to work quite proactively with our contractors and our suppliers.”
Ms Parry said considering the “whole-of-life” of a project is an important aspect of achieving this goal.
“It’s about designing for low-carbon outcomes, ensuring our communities can live in a low-carbon way once these projects are delivered.”
Projects leading the way
Central Pier
The removal of Central Pier from Victoria Harbour is a key step in plans to revitalise the waterfront in the heart of Docklands and sustainability has been a key consideration in the removal process.
Works are well underway to safely remove the pier, with resource recovery top of mind.
Development Victoria has achieved over 80 per cent resource recovery throughout deconstruction efforts.
“We’ve recovered 10,000 tonnes of materials so far, including steel, concrete, bricks, timber, e-waste,” Ms Parry said.
“That has gone back into projects and products being manufactured and built locally as well.
“We’re really proud of those circular economy outcomes and the fact that those materials are being reused locally.”
Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation
Backed by a $1.7 billion investment from the Victorian Government, this project will see the establishment of a new cultural hub, featuring a contemporary art gallery and public parklands.
Development Victoria is delivering the project on behalf of on behalf of the Victorian Government through Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation (MAP Co), in partnership with Arts Centre Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria and Creative Victoria. As part of this, the former Carlton & United Breweries building has been deconstructed to make way for the new gallery. Over 95 per cent of the non-hazardous materials from the deconstructed building have been recycled.
Development Victoria has also partnered with Revival, who is removing some of the timber from trees on the site and exploring ways to repurpose it, including in projects being built at the precinct.
“Revival is a small business doing something really innovative,” Ms Parry said.
“For us to invest in that, it’s not necessarily a complex thing. It’s just not business as usual.
“We’re saving probably what was a modest amount of timber going to become wood chips. However, when you look at it on a larger scale, trees get removed from hundreds and hundreds of projects each year or even month.
“What that means for resource recovery is pretty important.”
Development Victoria has also taken materials from the deconstruction works and put them to use on their own projects. This includes using old lift cables in the Werribee Open Range Zoo elephant enclosures.
Encouraging innovation
When it comes to striving to achieve carbon neutrality, Ms Parry said Development Victoria is proactive at encouraging innovation and investing in new practical technologies.
“One example is at soccer facilities we delivered at Powerful Owl Park in Bulleen where we used a Victorian-first solution for the infill on top of the synthetic turf pitch. This involved using natural wood particles instead of a rubber microplastic infill that usually leach into the stormwater and end up in our water systems.
“Transitioning from synthetic to natural material meant we reduced the huge amount of plastic that would otherwise have sat under that turf.”
Development Victoria is now looking at how it might adopt the technology in other sports precincts that it’s developing.
Additionally, the organisation is exploring the use of mass timber as a sustainable alternative to concrete in construction, which has demonstrated a reduction in carbon emissions by 30 to 50 per cent in some projects.
“Many of the strategies that we’re employing aren’t necessarily highly technical, but they are rational product substitutions or design methodologies to achieve carbon reduction,” Ms Parry said.
Local impact
Through the reuse of materials, Development Victoria is reducing the need for new raw materials, helping conserve resources. But implementing a circularly economy approach to construction has been challenging at a local and national scale.
“As you move down the supply chain, the businesses that we’re working with across these projects are smaller and smaller,” Ms Parry said.
“They need the support of project doing something a little different to boost circular economy outcomes.
“It’s been a bit of a fringe area, but I think it’s getting a lot more focused now,” Ms Parry said.
Some other local businesses that have played a crucial role in Development Victoria’s strategy include:
Delta Recycling in Sunshine has taken concrete and brick waste and transformed it into valuable construction materials and road bases
InfraBuild has recycled steel waste from Central Pier to produce various steel products used in construction and manufacturing
Jaks Timber has found creative ways to repurpose high-quality wood into new products like furniture and flooring
Measuring progress
To ensure accountability across its organisation, Development Victoria has mandated carbon accounting for all new projects.
“Any new project that comes into the organisation must do carbon accounting from early design, and we’re retrospectively estimating carbon impacts from projects that are in play.
“It aligns with the expectations across the sector to measure carbon, but also the State Government’s expectations that are emerging in business cases and will play out further moving forward,” Ms Parry said.
Carbon accounting is emerging as a key priority across the whole construction sector, but there are still challenges around the cost of delivering carbon reduction, the availability of products and the integrity of the data.
With varying inputs and standards involved in establishing the carbon impacts of products around the world, knowing whether the data attached to a product is accurate or what it does include can be quite complicated.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t start acting and estimating our carbon impacts,” Ms Parry said.
“We need a pretty colossal shift, but it is underway, and there’s sector organisations and the Green Building Council and the government, both state and federally, who are putting in place new expectations.
“The main challenge is that we need to continue to prioritise sustainability and resilience, even in the face of the pressures around delivery that we’re seeing.”
Development Victoria will continue to take a holistic approach to sustainability.
“We’re focused on making sure that carbon is part of a broader remit around delivering resilience for our communities and for the state of Victoria.”
