The Piccadilly Tower was slated for demolition, but thanks to an overseas trip to see how the rest of the world is travelling on embodied carbon, the company has decided to keep the building and refurbish it instead.
The decision will save around 23,000 tonnes of embodied in the 133 Castlereagh Street office tower and shopping centre.
According to The AFR, the company’s chief executive Tarun Gupta told CommBank’s Momentum 2024 conference that the changes was brought about by a study tour in Europe.
Mr Gupta said that the “normal way” of knocking down and reconstructing a building was no longer the norm.
The trip to Amsterdam, Copenhagen and London had shown him and the other Stockland some “amazing innovations”, he told the newspaper.
It was a trend the commercial property sector needed to embrace, he said.
“That was a spark we got from the tour, and I think we need to do more of that because [by] demolishing you’re taking away all that embodied carbon that was already put in and putting more [out] carbon.
“We’re going to upcycle the existing building, so we’re not demolishing. It’s got good bones, and we will build a new structure, keeping the existing carbon footprint – because most of the carbon’s in the steel and concrete in that building – and build around it,” he said.
According to Mr Gupta a big factor was that carbon accounting pressures to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Sarah Slattery, chief executive of quantity surveying firm Slattery told the Transform conference on Thursday that the decision would save about 74 per cent of a building’s upfront embodied carbon.