Two months after receiving the Green Building Council of Australia’s top gong, Surrey Hill’s Union Station has been honoured again, awarded the highest ever sustainability rating for a Victorian rail project.
The Infrastructure Sustainability Council (ISC) this week awarded the Union Station precinct an “As Built” score of 101 points, judged across a range of sustainability measures, including environmental management and the use of technological advances to set new engineering benchmarks.
ISC ratings are scored out of 100, with 10 bonus points available for innovation.
The project to build the premium Union Station and remove the two dangerous and congested level crossings from Union and Mont Albert roads successfully trialled several sustainability initiatives that have since been adopted in subsequent level crossing removal projects.
This included creating a Victorian industry first low-carbon emission concrete mix, and diverting waste from landfill by repurposing old ballast. More than 8600 tonnes of ballast rock was removed from the project site and cleaned to industry standard, enabling 7300 tonnes to be donated to the Yarra Heritage Railway and 1000 tonnes to be converted into aggregate.
The station’s 70kW rooftop solar system – one of the largest across the state’s rail network – has also slashed carbon emissions by 109 tonnes a year, reducing energy demand on the grid by generating 82,000 kWh annually, equivalent to powering more than eight houses every day.
These initiatives have contributed to a lifecycle reduction of 14,533 tonnes of carbon dioxide across the project, more than halving emissions compared with standard infrastructure projects.
The ISC rating follows the project’s recent 6-Star Green Star certification by the Green Building Council of Australia, an internationally-recognised rating system that assesses the sustainability outcomes from the design and construction of new buildings or major refurbishments.
The 6-star rating sees Union Station join the ranks of “world leadership” in building design and construction.
The Union and Mont Albert Road Level Crossing Removal Project removed two level crossings by lowering the rail line into a 1.5km open trench and consolidated two train stations into the new premium Union Station. The project also delivered new pedestrian and cycling paths, and four new and upgraded community spaces, including a new heritage plaza featuring the restored historic Mont Albert station building.