Future in focus: Climate Positive Roadmap for precincts.

It’s taken a long time for serious conversations to get traction on how to get meaningful action on carbon emissions and climate change.

However, the GBCA’s recently released Future in focus: Climate Positive Roadmap for Precincts crystallises a powerful message – that positive change is not solely reliant upon government, it’s up to all of us … and that we’re making some really positive steps in the right direction.

Future in Focus: A Climate Positive Roadmap for Precincts (GBCA, April 2022) sets out the core principles of climate-positive action at a precinct level – by which they mean larger development sites, communities, neighbourhoods or districts to which an overarching vision and coordinated development plan can apply, and with this a range of decarbonisation solutions.

The typical elements of precincts include buildings, public and private open space, streetscapes, transport infrastructure and utility infrastructure (communications, energy, water and sewerage, and waste). Successful operation is often underpinned by placemaking, engagement, behaviour change and management programs.

The message that Future in Focus: A Climate Positive Roadmap for Precincts delivers is that so many stakeholders have skin in the game and are making climate positive action part of everyday practice. This is illustrated simply and effectively on page 16 (ref: cover photo), which identifies who the stakeholders are and how climate action benefits them.

The diagram on page 17 (ref: cover photo) then demonstrates that the Federal government is just one of many hands-on the climate tiller – there are State and local governments, peak bodies, developers, owners, operators, service providers, infrastructure authorities, suppliers, manufacturers, professionals, contractors, local groups, occupants and residents who are more widely, intensively and consistently engaged throughout the planning and design, construction and operational phases of precincts and projects.

“… Australian industry’s leadership in driving the transformation in the built environment. Businesses are adopting these targets and goals to help manage risk and inform investment and development decisions. Boards are now aware of the importance of reporting on carbon trajectories in line with international guidelines, legal opinions, and good risk management. … Larger investors are seeking assets that can demonstrate their contribution to helping deliver the targets in the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Demonstrating a commitment to keep global warming below 1.5oC will become a competitive advantage for industry leaders”.

Pp10-11

We, as development industry professionals, all have a meaningful role to play in setting a climate positive course. There is a very real opportunity for industry stakeholders to increasingly demonstrate better, more sustainable and carbon-positive ways to live, work and play, in part driven by meeting community and good corporate governance model expectations. Some of the potential policy outcomes are shown on GBCA’s roadmap summary, reproduced below.

Increasingly, this policy shift will likely become the new normal for how we design, develop and live in our urban places.?

The roadmap summary

• New precincts must have no operational carbon emissions and have lower upfront and other carbon emissions by 2030.
• Existing precincts must begin decarbonisation efforts as soon as possible. All precincts must be well on their way to decarbonising by 2040.
• All precincts (new and existing) must have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
• Precincts are built using materials with significantly lower embodied carbon. Emissions are minimised during construction.
• All buildings and infrastructure are energy efficient. They reduce stress on the broader grid.
• Transport emissions are reduced by good planning and urban design, promotion of active transport and low carbon transport options.
• The precinct does not use fossil fuels for stationary energy.
• All energy is sourced from 100% onsite or off-site renewables.
• The balance of emissions is neutralised through an offsets approach that leads to positive biodiversity outcomes.

Pp 18.