What does a sustainable city look like?

InfraBuild – Australia’s largest manufacturer of steel long products – has a clear vision for the future of our cities; it encompasses their pursuit of a carbon-neutral 2030. With over 100 years of operation behind them, they’ve developed and continue to develop a deep understanding of consumer drivers in their industry.

Through this process, they came to a transformative insight about what needs to change and what doesn’t need to change at all: they knew that to create rapid change, it needs to be easy for stakeholders to adopt. In creating their new SENSE Solutions® product range, they sought to create Australia’s sustainable steel without compromise: a steel that will allow our cities to grow and flourish without growing our carbon emissions.

Why steel?

By solving the emissions intensity issues associated with steel, it becomes a sustainability powerhouse – allowing
it to remain a mainstay in the cityscape of tomorrow. Due to its strength and recyclability, steel plays a key role in creating long-lasting structures. Steel used in construction is generally regarded as being able to outlast other construction materials including concrete and wood – so structures built using steel today will be the structures we see tomorrow.

But it’s steel’s recyclability rather than its simple strength that makes it a truly sustainable building material. This is something InfraBuild knows well: as well as being one of Australia’s biggest steel producers, it’s also one of Australia’s largest metal recycling businesses. In 2022, InfraBuild was able to capture 98 per cent of the recoverable metals in its recycling stream . The SENSE Solutions® range is a testament to their recycling prowess: it’s made from 100 per cent scrap metal at their Australian manufacturing facilities.

Why it makes sense

Now available across Australia, SENSE Solutions® has launched and is here to facilitate rapid decarbonisation across the construction industry and help achieve a carbon- neutral 2030. Their reinforcing bar, SENSE 600®, is available in bar diameters with the same Equivalent Load Capacity as standard 500N bars: this makes it a simple swap for stakeholders across the industry.

Furthermore, it uses up to 16.7 per cent less raw material than their equivalent 500N bar, and this can result in up to a 35 per cent reduction in embodied carbon. While the development of this innovative bar is transformative, it doesn’t transform the processes of the stakeholders who choose to use it. From their century of operation in the Australian market, InfraBuild has developed a deep understanding of how engineers, builders, and developers approach their work and recognise the intricacies in how these parties come together to handle a project. With this understanding, SENSE Solutions® is enabling stakeholders across the built environment to achieve their ambitions of a more sustainable city.

An easy swap for sustainability leaders

For engineers and designers, SENSE 600® allows them to use their existing software for new designs, and convert existing designs with the substitution tables that SENSE Solutions® provides. Builders and steel fixers, too, can go about their business as usual: they simply receive a lighter product onsite. With this sustainable swap made, these parties can dedicate their efforts to what they do best: generate creative and innovative solutions that shape our skylines.

But the SENSE Solutions® range goes beyond just the commercial construction industry: they’ve even reimagined our suburbs with a solution for residential projects.

SENSE 600® TrenchMeshTM is designed so it can be a direct replacement for Grade 500 MPa trench mesh, providing an easy transition for residential builders. Both products are CodeMark certified for your project’s peace of mind, making
it an even easier choice. With SENSE Solutions®, the work has already been done, so the construction industry can make the sustainable switch at scale and at pace.

While designers, engineers, builders and developers will continue to change the face of our cities, innovations like the SENSE Solutions® range empower them to make more sustainable spaces without added effort or expenditure. For industry leaders and innovators, looking to build the cities and spaces of tomorrow, it’s a choice that just makes sense.

So, what will the city of tomorrow look like? Empowered with materials such as SENSE Solutions®, and the vision of a carbon-neutral 2030, engineers, architects, developers and designers are free to create strong, sustainable cities that give back to people and the planet.