Jurisdictional approaches to driving greener outcomes
Video transcript
Note: The audio during this video at times is poor, therefore certain sections of this video could not be documented in this transcript. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.
Text: Victoria’s Big Build. EcologiQ Greener Infrastructure Conference 2022. Victoria State Government.
Professor Tim Flannery:
We've got a wonderful panel session coming up.
I'd like to introduce our first afternoon panel which is going to be focusing on how Australian governments are integrating sustainability, circular economy and recycled and reuse of material through different policy and procurement approaches.
I'd like to welcome our panellists onto the stage.
The first is Camilla Drover, who is the Deputy Secretary Infrastructure and Place Transport for NSW; and Veronica James who is Associate Director Transformation and Innovation Green Industries South Australia, who I believe is joining us on screen; and Ramses Zietek, Director Environment Sustainability and Cultural Heritage, Department of Transport and Main Roads in Queensland.
The panel moderator is going to be Dr Jonathon Spear, CEO Infrastructure Australia.
Welcome Jonathan I'll hand over to you.
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
Thank you.
Thank you very much Tim, and I'd like to share with everyone that I'm CEO of infrastructure Victoria.
I don't want to terrify anyone about acceleration of the Infrastructure Australia CEO recruitment process.
Good afternoon everybody and thanks for joining us.
I'd like to thank Tim for introducing the session and of course acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we're meeting and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
We are going to get into the comparative session here.
You've heard a lot this morning about what's going on in Victoria, this session is going to be looking at what other jurisdictions are doing.
So we're going to look at NSW, South Australia and Queensland, and there's always things that are similar and things that we can learn from each other as well.
The format will be we'll have some presentations, some brief presentations from each of the panellists, and then after that there'll be some Q&A and I'll be moderating that, and maybe even putting in a few views of my own.
And what I'd really encourage you though is that if you've got any questions you'd like to put to the panel you've got the Slido with the link there and please feel free to to put those questions through and I'll be really happy to field them for you.
So first I'm going to ask Camilla to kick off proceedings and she'll make a presentation about the state of play in NSW.
Thanks Camila.
Camilla Drover, Deputy Secretary, Infrastructure and Place, Transport for NSW:
Okay, do I do it from here?
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
You can do it from there if you like absolutely.
Camilla Drover, Deputy Secretary, Infrastructure and Place, Transport for NSW:
Okay.
Great.
Text: Transport for NSW.
Well thank you Jonathan and thank you for having me here today.
I'd also like to start by acknowledging country and paying my respects to traditional custodians of the lands we're coming from today which I believe are the peoples of the Kulin Nation, and I pay my respects for the Elders past and present and acknowledge and extend those respects to any Aboriginal people joining us today.
And I do want to thank ecologiQ for also bringing together so many leaders and decision makers to discuss this really important issue.
Look for us sustainability has always been a key consideration for infrastructure but of course now with a warming climate globally it's becoming even more important.
So I thought I'd start by just sharing with you a few things we're doing at Transport for NSW to address this issue.
And for me we've got four-five steps that we're looking at to really address this issue, so I'm going to take you through what those five steps are.
Text: Policy.
The first building block is getting the policy directions right and the foundation's right, and in NSW we have got a state government that's very committed to this.
They're committed to transitioning to net-zero by 2050, and there's a really joined up whole of government approach to this, and that's supported by a number of key documents.
Text: NSW Net Zero Plan.
So the first one of those is the NSW Net-Zero Plan, so that's a whole of government plan across the government to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Text: Future Transport Strategy.
The second one was released on Monday and that's Transport for NSW’ Future Transport Strategy, and that includes strategies to ensure that every journey across NSW is planet positive, and it sets specific actions for Transport for NSW to use more sustainable materials and to design out waste so that's a really important guiding document for us.
Text: NSW State Infrastructure Strategy.
And the last one is the NSW State Infrastructure Strategy, again released earlier this year, and that includes six recommendations to achieve an orderly and efficient transition to net-zero by working with industry across the construction industry, so, three really clear documents that will drive sustainability across the construction industry.
Over and above that there is the Transport for NSW Sustainability Plan which looks at broader initiatives around sustainability.
So those documents are important because they give us a clear direction about the steps we're going to take to address the issue.
Text: Operational changes.
The next key building block I want to mention is what we're doing in the operational space to address our direct emissions, and we've really made some big advances in this area already.
So last year, I don't know whether you know, but city trains is the first heavy rail network in Australia to be 100% powered by renewable energy.
The Sydney Metro Network that we're rolling out, a bit like Victoria, it's offset its operational energy with 100% renewable energy, and in fact a solar farm was built in NSW to support that.
And we're also now looking at our ferry fleet and our regional train fleet about what options we've got there to transition to renewables.
So what we're left with is the residual direct emissions of transport now are really in the bus space, so to address that we're well advanced with our zero emission bus program.
We're looking to transition all the over 8,000 buses across NSW to zero emissions by 2047, so for Greater Sydney that means 4,000 buses will be transitioned by 2035, out of metropolitan by 2040, and the balance of the state by 2047.
We've already got 100 buses, electric buses in Sydney, and by the middle of next year we'll have over 200, so we're well on the way.
And we're also trialling a hydrogen bus on the Central Coast by the end of this year, so we're addressing our direct emissions in the operational space.
Text: Modelling best practice.
The next building block is what we're doing in terms of trialling and piloting renewable recycled materials within our projects, so we're doing a lot of things in this space and we’ve been doing it for a while.
One project I want to mention is the Albion Park rail bypass, so that project just south of Sydney it's recycled 1.1 million tonnes of recycled material including coal ash.
So it just demonstrates it can be done, and by doing those trials what we're seeing is where the hurdles are, where the opportunities are, and the lessons learned out of those trials and those pilots, and then we can take those and leverage them right across our portfolio.
Text: Sustainable Procurement.
The fourth one I want to talk about is the one that we're particularly focused on at the moment, because we recognise that we're the largest purchaser of construction materials in NSW, and I don't know whether you know but our budget for Transport for NSW in the next four years is $76.7 billion, so a significant spend and we've got to make sure that we spend that wisely.
so in February this year we launched the sustainable procurement and infrastructure initiative and the discussion paper, and we've had deep engagement with industry ever since, and it really does set a way forward for how we're going to make this business-as-usual and apply it right across our portfolio.
We're now in the second stage of that initiative and we've got deep engagement with industry for seven key target areas.
The first of those sessions we actually held last week and we had over 150 industry participants join us and that was on the baseline sustainability requirements that we're developing, so great engagement, we really need to hear from industry because it's not going to be us mandating it we need to do it collaboratively and in a joined up way with industry and we have had that really great feedback today, not just from contractors but from designers, investors, and also the material suppliers, so that's really what we're focused on.
Text: Business-as-usual.
And if we do all that hopefully we'll achieve that fifth building block which is where we want to be to make sustainable construction across all our infrastructure business-as-usual for everything we do for every project.
So look, we're well on that journey and I think if I reflect on this 30 years ago, you know, we were looking at making safety a non-negotiable, and I think we could take the same approach with sustainability, it's got to be just something we do as part of every aspect of doing business, it's got to be industry joined up with government, and then we're going to make that difference and make sure that does become business-as-usual.
So a little bit of an idea of what we're doing at Transport for NSW, we are very committed to this, very passionate about it, and I think we've made some really good advance in getting to that fifth outcome.
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
Great thank you.
It gives a really good picture of what's going on in NSW.
We're going to head across to South Australia now, and really pleased that Veronica is joining us from Green industry South Australia.
So Veronica welcome virtually, great to have you with us.
Tell us a bit about what's been happening in South Australia with circular procurement.
Veronica James, Associate Director, Transformation and Innovation, Green Industries SA:
Thanks very much, and I do have some slides to share.
Thank you for the opportunity to present today all the way from South Australia.
And I’d like to acknowledge the land on which I’m streaming from which is the lands of the Kaurna people.
I am essentially coming today from a potentially different point of view in that I come from a green industry sector, which has the role more in the environment space as opposed to infrastructure and transport and building roads and sort of building construction.
So I come from Green Industries SA, which is formerly known as Zero Waste SA.
We have a role in circular economy, waste and recycling and in a green economy, so I’ll take you through the slides and I believe that you can see them.
Text: Circular Procurement in South Australia.
Can I just get an indication that you can?
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
Yeah, we can.
Veronica James, Associate Director, Transformation and Innovation, Green Industries SA
Excellent.
Text: Green Industries SA Vision and Purpose.
Circular economy to us is our core area of business, so we are leader in the circular economy.
South Australia is very very proud of the achievements which is essentially why we’re here today.
We’ve got long-standing history in [0:11:16 - audio quality poor] and single use plastics right through to food waste recovery.
Across the sort of three key streams in addressing waste and recycling we want to make sure that we remove materials away from landfill, but we also want to improve the the market conditions associated with the resource recovery opportunities.
We've done very well in terms of food waste and our composting sector, and in addressing some of the material streams which were directly affected as a result of the China's National Sword Policy and the changes in global market conditions.
So they are certainly some of the pressures that we've seen to encourage better resource recovery.
Circular economy is another key focus for us all across the value chain from design, use, reuse, repair, getting better circular business models in place.
And green economy is an expanding focus sort of leaning on the role of businesses in that, you know, they essentially want to save money and resources and be net-zero the the challenge is there.
And we have a role to help business within South Australia to help achieve that.
Text: Strategic Plan 2022-2030.
In relation to procurement, what I would comment on is that, and probably a unique offering that I can give on behalf of South Australia, relates to the key roles that need to be true across all of these areas, from leadership and advocacy to policy, regulations, incentives and support, Innovation and research, and the behavioural change components that need to happen for circular economy and sustainability action to be achieved.
We find that where we've had success within South Australia, for example in some material streams are doing very well, l and where we've been able to get action it has been because all of those conditions are just right so that we can actually get some action.
So when I look to examples relating to procurement it is actually very challenging and an emerging area.
Text: Leadership, Advocacy and Policy.
South Australia, we’re guided by the Waste Strategy in terms of resource recovery.
And the Industry Participation Policy which is led by the Office of the industry Advocate, and so essentially that's about, you know, working on the better industry conditions relating to the $4 billion in government spending on goods and services that the the state government undertakes every year, and also there is a very specific role relating to the $1.5 billion in contracts that are awarded annually in building and construction.
So we play a big role working with the Office of the Industry Advocate on issues relating to procurement.
In terms of our role, I won't – I think a lot of these will come up through panel discussion, but going back to the role of resource recovery, we find that in order to achieve procurement, a greater procurement frameworks within South Australia, we've had to support incentives and market development around new business models and practices at the very beginning, so to accelerate the uptake of more durable product materials, and getting the full value of those resources out into the marketplace, we incentivise that through a market development program and have had some great results.
Text: Circular Economy Market development Highlights.
One of them being the Buy-Back Policy which local government councils have come together, they've pooled in, grabbed all of their buying power together, nine councils across metro areas and some sort of peri-urban council areas coming together to commit to buying certain materials, some of which relate to construction within the public places right through to office materials, food – sorry – composting within public parks and so forth, so that is an excellent program.
Text: Scorecard.
And they also have a scorecard where they assess the outcomes of the project.
In innovation and research we're doing a little bit of work around the built environment that's an exciting new project at the moment with the Green Building Council of Australia, essentially that's to examine what can we do within the circular economy space?
We have pooled together the commercial sector and the residential sector to look at some of the barriers for taking circular economy action, and we're already finding some excellent results.
We'll be releasing that information publicly over the course of the next month.
Text: Circular Economy Market development Highlights.
And some of the other highlights that we are working towards is going back to that very initial phase of, are there even markets for materials in the first place, and does the demand exist relating to if I were to invest in a particular product is the demand there?
So one of the areas that we've looked at recently has been the Lithium-ion batteries, given the proliferation of electric vehicles on the market, so that's one example of an area where we have found that yes, there is the potential there but there are challenges associated with end of life processing and costs and so forth that go into that.
Other areas relate to use of recycled content within roads, we like to test these through this market development program, undertake the initial research that needs to go, that needs to underpin any procurement uptake to test its viability, is it going to perform the way that it should, and to sort of decrease the uneven playing field, a field that can exist for recycled content and sustainable products.
Text: What’s next? Policy, Education and Promotion.
I won't go too much into detail in any of these but some of the other areas are that we really do understand that we've got to start from the beginning with the policy and guideline development around circular procurement, and getting the knowledge base out there.
Text: Sector opportunities.
The Green Village environment lots and sector opportunities, trying to make sure that they're front and centre, and that there are working demonstrations of these in action.
So thank you very much.
I'll stop sharing now and really appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
Great, thank you very much Veronica.
It's great to hear that update from South Australia which of course as ,you know many of us have looked to previously as a leader in this field, and great to see that update.
We'll now go to Queensland where Ramses, who's from Department of Main Roads is going to give us the update of what's happening up to our northern neighbour.
Thanks and over to you Ramses.
Ramses Zietek, Director, Environment, Sustainability and Cultural Heritage, Department of Transport and Main Roads, QLD:
Yes, thank you.
Thanks for inviting me to talk today.
So, I’d also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands in which we meet today, including the Elders past, present and emerging.
As introduced my name is Ramses Zietek, I'm the Director of Environment, Cultural Heritage and Sustainability at the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads.
There's a lot going on in the space of sustainable procurement in Queensland, and we were sort of challenged with putting together a short talk of, you know, possibly five minutes or so to get across some key messages.
So, I’m only going to target what I’m going to talk about in terms of what TMR is doing in that infrastructure management and procurement space around recycle materials and a couple of key policies.
All the things I'm going to be talking about are available on our website and I also encourage people, you’ve now heard from me, reached out to me on LinkedIn or through the conference organisers if you’ve got questions around some of the specifics because we’ve got a lot of detail within these documents.
So I’m just going to go through at my level, you know, the key policies that we have and key objectives at TMR and then I’m going to dive out into a little bit of information around some of our technical specifications and enabling that these policies lead in to.
So at a high level TMR brought out its Environmental Sustainability Policy last year, and on the sustainable procurement and recycled materials front includes a couple of key takeaway points.
One is the promoting research adoption and innovation of practices and construction methodologies that facilitate reducing, reusing and recycling resources as part of the circular economy.
So we've got the top-down buy-in on driving things towards a circular economy process, and it's a really big driver for the Queensland Government, so getting this across the line at a whole departmental level is a key thing for TMR at the moment.
And another key component of that particular policy is collaborating and leading us [0:21:46 - audio quality poor] and delivery partners, including local governments and transport operators, to improve their environmental sustainability and also improve the environmental sustainability of the overall transport network.
So a couple of key points there in terms of the overarching Environment Sustainability Policy which is across most of the actions that we carry out at TMR.
Beneath TMR we’ve released a waste resource strategy which has a vision of TMR becoming a zero waste organisation and a transport industry leader with circular economy practices.
Now, this has a number of key objectives this strategy, including minimising waste to landfill, achieving resource efficiencies through circular economy practices, facilitating market growth and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from waste generation and resource use.
So there's a couple of key objectives in there and that sort of builds upon five key pillars I guess within that actual strategy.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about one of these in particular and possibly the second one.
So the first one is specifications and processes, the second one is interagency engagement and internal collaboration, the third is marketing engagement and transformation, fourth is procurement, and fifth is data collection and analysis, so we have to be able to measure and determine success of what we're doing.
So what this all sort of culminates in is we’ve brought out a website which you will be able to have a look at if you’re interested, it’s called Building Sustainable Roads.
So if you Google Building Sustainable Roads and TMR it’ll bring up a lot of information on some of our recycled material, reused material success stories.
However, if you scroll to the bottom of that page there’s a couple of key links on that document.
And one of those is a thing called Technical Note 193 Use of Recycled Materials, now within that technical note there is a ton of information and a couple of links, and what it does is it actually maps out what recycled materials we’re using, what applications across the business, and then further over on the side of that table you can have a look and that includes a list of all the TMR technical specifications where that is cross-related.
So for example, you want to use crushed glass on your project and it's a national project, you know, you can have a look at the table, go have a look across to the right and it’ll list all the TMR technical specs that relate to that, and that gives you the allowable tolerances that we allow on the different types of designs and products that we're procuring.
Another useful tool, just backing out of the Technical Note 193 back up to our sustainable roads page, is we include a thing called the Waste and Recycling Calculator.
So this is a little tool that we've made available to general public as well as for our projects, but what we're essentially looking at is for projects to come on board and do calculations around what they anticipate the waste is.
We find sometimes it’s a little bit difficult to obtain, you know, hard data around some of the waste tonnages from [0:24:45 - audio quality poor], if we get people thinking about it upfront we can actually drive some of the change to the recycling and reuse opportunities [0:24:51 - audio quality poor] in the procurement process and also in construction and design and implementation processes as well.
The waste cycle has a – it’s quite a [0:25:10 - audio quality poor] tool and it helps tenders [0:25:14 - audio quality poor] waste estimates to record their actual data and also to have a look at, like I said, some of those recycling/reuse opportunities.
TMR also uses this with some of its clients for reporting on, so back [0:25:28 - audio quality poor] of these [0:25:31 - audio quality poor] that we’re doing in terms of encouraging a circular economy, reused/recycling, we’ve also go obligations to report on our waste and [0:25:40 - audio quality poor] specific targets that are lined up against this State Waste Strategy.
[0:25:46 - audio quality poor] reductions in waste [0:25:50 - audio quality poor] it’s also important for our requirements.
Now, the [0:25:53 - audio quality poor] TMR also just recently [0:25:56 - audio quality poor] for waste recycling and basically what we’re asking for is [0:26:02 - audio quality poor] report when they’re putting in their tender their anticipated recycled, reused and volumes, all of those types of things, recycled materials that are using of particular tenders, and we’ve [0:26:16] through MRTS 51 Environmental Management and we basically require this information now as a part of a Waste Resource Plan, so that’s something that will be of interest to contractors in Queensland [0:26:29 - audio quality poor].
However, it might be [0:26:31 - audio quality poor], we’re asking contractors just allow [0:26:39 - audio quality poor] as a part of the weighted assessment criteria, so what we're essentially doing at the moment is providing that signal to market that is hey, this is the direction we want to go with industry, we want you to start thinking about these things on our project, start reporting it, and at the moment we we're following, enabling and reporting on the particular information, so we can collect all this data to have a look at where we're having success and where we're not and then we'll have a look at some of those whole of government working groups that we've got in Queensland in terms of enabling resource recovery Industries and recycling industries in the areas where there's lower performance.
So that's my quick introduction, so I'll head back over to Jonathan.
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
Great thank you thank you Ramses and there was a little bit of sound distortion while you were speaking but what I'd encourage everyone to do is check out the the TMR website, which of course has some more detail of what Ramses was talking about.
You might be aware that Infrastructure Victoria is a state’s independent infrastructure advisor and a couple of years ago we did a dedicated piece of advice on the infrastructure required for recycling and resource recovery, which fed into a lot of the establishment of Recycling Victoria which you've heard about already in the conference, and as part of that work we looked across jurisdictions, both in Australia and internationally and some of what the panellists have described so far seems pretty consistent to me with what we saw.
So things like understanding that it's a multi-decade journey that you're usually on to achieve a circular economy, but that you've got a start somewhere, but it's really helpful to have clear targets, alignment of all your policies, good data and then an understanding of the entire lifecycle of product from generation, collection, the processing infrastructure, and of course as we all know in this room the criticality of end markets, of developing those end markets and R&D, and so that's something that we're seeing really across the world at places that are leading in this and really good to see that starting to come through with some of the state strategies we've got both in Victoria, but interstate as well.
Camilla, something I might ask you about, you started down this journey, what are the biggest challenges you’ve made just to overcome so far and is there any unfinished business as well in terms of increasing the circularity of product and recycling that you and your team have been working on?
Camilla Drover, Deputy Secretary, Infrastructure and Place, Transport for NSW:
Okay, look I think some of the procurement and contract clauses specification standards were originally in a hurdle.
But I think through the trials and the pilots we're understanding we’re understanding where those hurdles are so we're starting to address them, that is one of the the six initiatives that are part of the sustainable procurement in infrastructure initiative, so working with industry on that.
I think one of the biggest hurdles for us collectively as an industry is doing it early enough.
We all know that value on projects is created initiation and eroded thereafter, so unless we start this up front, if we just focus on recycling and reusing product it's not enough, we actually need to look at the whole lifecycle of a project, really support that circular economy.
So it comes back to the initiation of projects, you know, do we need to build in the first place, are there technologies, digital technologies, that could deliver the same outcome particularly in transport without us using steel and concrete etcetera, and then following that right throughout the lifecycle the project.
And the other thing we're very, very focused on at Transport for NSW is to make sure that all tiers of Industry can participate in this, and that's why we're designing, co-designing initiative with industry, because we're really cognisant that many of the first tier contractors have quite advanced approaches to sustainability, and again many of the material suppliers and it's great to see so many here today, but we want to ensure that the framework and the policy that we design is equally applicable to all tiers of Industry.
So your first tier, second tier, third tier contractors can all participate because then I think we are going to get a business-as-usual across the portfolio approach.
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
Yeah thank you.
And Veronica I might go to you next, you know, South Australia has been thinking about this for a while and what strikes me is that some of what we're talking about in terms of recycle product going into transport project is great, but it's not always truly circular, and so what's the thinking in South Australia about true circularity versus using recycled products that may not be truly circular but better than landfill?
Where's your thinking on that and what sort of initiatives you're taking there?
Veronica James, Associate Director, Transformation and Innovation, Green Industries SA:
Excellent question.
True circularity is essentially the core of the issue, so in terms of true circularity we do actually have some examples within South Australia, so glass is a fundamental one because within South Australia I mentioned that all of those conditions have to be in place for true circularity to actually occur.
So with glass that's one example of the legislation actually aligns with the collection of the glass, enables separation across three different glass streams from the amber, the colour to the clear.
We've got the infrastructure in place to recycle it and then to manufacture glass bottles, so glass recycling back into glass manufacturing classic example.
Composting sector is another key one, so you get the sort of full circularity through food waste recovery, organics recovery, right through to its use for more production within the, you know, for food and within the agricultural sectors.
In terms of other circular products what we're finding is that there is a challenge around mixed products, so for example, the use of composite products in, you know, we're seeing an uptake with the the plastics and wood-based composite products which are used within the built environment sector and certainly in railway beds, or they're being tested for railway beds and things like that.
Whether or not they are truly circular at their end of life is another issue but it's certainly making progress in the right way.
Another example which I could probably give which is fantastic that we're seeing in the built environment sector, is shifting the focus all the way back to designing for better flexibility, so a great example is x-frame, where x-frame is sort of this modular framing system which can be used within corporate fitouts, it enables sort of adaptability and reuse, and then at the end of life it can be fully recovered for recycling and proper sustainable management of that material.
So what we're wanting to see is more uptake, and more uptake of those types of products, so we've worked to incentivise those through commercialisation of those Innovations, but also also to embed the requirement within tender specifications and contracts and things like that right at the front end to enable consideration of procuring those sorts of resources in the first place, so whole-of-life costs are going to be important through that sort of design planning and tender phase, and sort of developing contracts up front.
So we're sort of working around that area with the Office of the Industry Advocate particularly for government procurement because we're finding that those costs are just simply not embedded, and then following that it will be about getting the tools and knowledge base right across the state government to increase the uptake of those types of materials.
So certainly true circularity is front and centre and we would like to take more work in that area and continue that drive through our market development program and other mechanisms,
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
Great thanks Veronica.
There’s time for just one quick last question, and Camilla, it would be good to hear your observations about the consistency of approach that we take across Australia.
So one of the things that you often hear from industry is that each jurisdiction is doing some great things but the consistency of how we’re procuring the standards we have.
How is this playing out for you and what do you think the opportunities are there for consistency across jurisdictions?
Camilla Drover, Deputy Secretary, Infrastructure and Place, Transport for NSW:
Yeah look it’s s a really good point, again as part of our sustainable procurement in infrastructure initiative those seven target areas that we're now working on to co-design, we're trying to do wherever possible that with many of the industry bodies, because we're conscious that to get gains quickly, and we don't want to have duplicative work, we've got to do it with those industry bodies because there is a commonality of commitment, we've just got to make sure that we're all aligned, so we are doing with industry bodies and we're not doing it in isolation, and we're really keen to share our lessons learned with other delivery agencies.
We're also collaborating with others and looking to what others are doing, so Infrastructure Partnerships Australia just last week, they put out their paper on the carbon business case which was really great to see.
We are also working up a similar initiative which has good alignment with that, so there's some commonality, and we've also been working with NSW Treasury to come up with a framework, a framework for the reuse of recycled material.
But we're also working on a framework for when we're doing business cases that we start that assessment of carbon content right up front even at the strategic business case, so historically in business cases we're comparing costs and benefits, we'll no longer just be looking at cost but also the carbon content of that project, and that will also guide decision making because whether we want to perhaps have a greater balance between carbon outcome as opposed to cost outcome.
So yeah, really conscious that to get those quick gains we're going to do it collaboratively, and we should be doing it across jurisdictions because I think we all want the same outcome.
Jonathon Spear, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria:
Yeah great, thanks for that.
Certainly thinking about this challenge before us with recycled product in the broader scheme of carbon reduction and our opportunities to do that both up front in selection and design and then through the lifecycle is something I'm certainly seeing across jurisdictions, across Australia, and across the world, and that we also turn our attention to.
We're going to have to finish up the panel there, but hopefully you found that useful in terms of both the similarities but also some of the different approaches and examples we can take from each jurisdiction.
Please join me in thanking Camilla, Veronica, Ramses for joining us for this panel.
Enjoy the rest of the conference and back to you Tim, thank you.
Professor Tim Flannery:
Jonathan and the panel that was a fantastic insight, just lovely to see the different jurisdictions laying out where they are and let's hope that's the beginning of a bigger, much bigger, collaboration which I think we're going to need into the future.
Text: Victoria’s Big Build. EcologiQ Greener Infrastructure Conference 2022. Victoria State Government.