Playing a part in Victoria achieving its emission reductions targets while preparing for the challenges presented by climate change.
As part of our work on the central tunnelling package of works, we’re tackling greenhouse gas emissions at every stage. From procurement and design to delivery and operations.
There have been some big sustainability wins out of the procurement process for the central tunnelling package. Our tunnels will use 100% renewable electricity during construction. This is double our initial, program-wide target.
As part of the tender process for the tunnelling package, bidders needed to adopt an emissions reduction approach, that prioritised avoiding greenhouse gas emissions over carbon offsetting.
This led to some key innovations in the successful bid, including:
During construction, State Toll Co, which will collect tolls for North East Link, will explore and evaluate procurement options for renewable electricity for the Spark consortium to operate and maintain the North East Link Tunnels.
We’re working closely with our design and construction partners to embed solutions across all stages of North East Link.
As we build North East Link, we’ll use significant amounts of concrete, which usually contains high embodied carbon.
Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with all activities during the production of a finished material. This includes extracting the raw material, transport, and manufacturing.
We’ve worked with our tunnelling construction contractor (Spark) and suppliers to set targets for benchmarking and reducing embodied carbon in concrete used for temporary and permanent construction works on the North East Link Tunnels.
To make sure everyone working on the North East Link Tunnels understands our targets and how to identify and put in place sustainable concrete opportunities on the project, we’ve developed:
We’re already using low carbon content where we can. In piling works for our TBM launch box in Watsonia, we’re halving the amount of Portland cement used by supplementing our concrete mix with low carbon recycled materials.