The Every Building Counts series by the Property Council of Australia and the Green Building Council of Australia has turned their attention to state and territory governments.
Policies recommended for federal and local governments were released earlier this year, with the focus on the impact of government on industry collaborations to achieve more sustainable, healthier, and equitable built environment.
The 40 recommendations in the Every Building Counts for state and territory governments were organised into key themes:
- zero carbon ready, resilient building plans: setting a long-term strategy
- electrification: disallow new gas connections and require all new residential and commercial buildings to operate on high-quality electric equipment
- incentivise high performance: planning incentives to accelerate the shift to high-performance, sustainable buildings
- minimum standards: support an accelerated trajectory for resilient, all electric, zero carbon ready, healthy buildings in the National Construction Code
- energy market reform: embed the “energy efficiency first” principle in relevant legislation, statements, and policies
- government leadership: commit to achieving zero carbon ready new and existing government owned and leased buildings by 2030
- robust rating tools for all building types: empower owners, buyers, and renters with a single national rating scheme for home energy performance
- towards zero embodied carbon: adopt a credible framework for measuring embodied carbon
The Property Council of Australia and Green Building Council of Australia launched the report last week in Canberra, with the Australian Capital Territory’s Water, Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Shane Rattenbury in attendance.
While the Property Council ACT executive director Shane Martin acknowledged the ACT government’s commitment to electrifying homes and buildings, he said there were significant opportunities to scale up that progress with planning incentives.
“Planning incentives like density bonuses and green door policies would increase the sustainability of new buildings by addressing a primary concern for builders: the expenses, time commitment and unpredictability associated with planning systems,” Martin said.
“Increasing the density of residential projects in exchange for more sustainable and higher-performing buildings just makes sense, providing more homes that are comfortable and energy efficient to live in.”
Martin said: “Policies and planning incentives that encourage achievement of sustainability benchmarks also open up other opportunities for the market to move at greater pace and scale.
“For example, homes that are highly efficient, fully electric and powered by renewables are eligible for green mortgages offered by major banks and buildings independently certified with rating tools such as Green Star and NABERS are proving to be more attractive to investors,” he said.
Green Building Council of Australia Chief Executive Office Davina Rooney said effective government policies were crucial to encouraging a transition to a resilient built environment ready for zero carbon initiatives.
“Incentives have the potential to accelerate the adoption of energy-efficient and distributed technologies in both new and existing buildings,” Rooney said.