Page 24 - Climate Control News April 2020

Residential Air Conditioning
NET ZERO EMISSIONS ROADMAP
Infrastructure will play a critical role in supporting Australia’s transition to net zero emissions according to a new paper released last month.
Infrastructure contributes around 70 per cent of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Issues Paper: Reshaping Infrastructure for a net zero emissions future. The paper is published in partnership by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA), ClimateWorks Australia and the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC).
ISCA CEO, Ainsley Simpson, said most infrastructure built today will still be operating in 2050 and by then, all Australian states and territories are aiming to be at net zero emissions.
Michael Li, Senior Project Manager (Cities & Policy), at ClimateWorks Australia, said infrastructure influences 15 per cent of Australia’s emissions directly and 55 per cent indirectly.
“Direct emissions occur across the life-cycle including in procurement, construction, operations and decommissioning. But the majority of emissions are associated with the end use of assets and the activities they enable,” Li said.
Suzanne Toumbourou, executive director of ASBEC, said with billions of dollars in the infrastructure pipeline, now is the time for consensus about what role infrastructure can play in achieving a net zero emissions future.
FROM ABOVE LEFT: ISCA CEO, Ainsley Simpson. ClimateWorks senior project manager, Michael Li. ASBEC executive director, Suzanne Toumbourou.
A TOUGH 2019
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) reports the number of construction businesses that went into external administration rose from 371
in the September quarter of 2018 to 514 in 2019.
Meanwhile, over the 2018-19 financial year, 556 construction companies went under, 101 more than the previous financial year.
RiskWise Property Research CEO, Doron Peleg, said 169 NSW-based construction companies went into administration, receivership or a court-ordered shutdown in the
June quarter which was the highest number since the September quarter in 2015. According to CreditorWatch, the
construction sector also topped the list for recovery court actions Australia- wide and in NSW, court actions for
recovery in the third quarter of 2019 were 35 per cent higher than the
comparable quarter of 2018.
The Bank Australia Clean Energy Home will draw on up to $60 million in CEFC finance, providing the interest rate discount via its Premium Package Home Loan to mortgages below $1.5 million.
Over time, Bank Australia will extend the benefits of the Clean Energy Home Loan to exist- ing homes, to finance ambitious green home im- provements, such as energy monitoring and en- ergy storage systems, solar hot water and energy efficient air conditioning.
While the commercial construction market has been booming, the residential market had a tough year in 2019.
Chief economist for Master Builders Austral- ia, Shane Garrett, said the good news is that new home building and transport infrastructure are set to drive construction activity higher over the next few years with commercial building likely to retreat from record highs.
The February 2020 edition of Master Builders Australia’s Industry Forecast reports have just been published and contain projections of build- ing and construction activity out to the 2024/25 financial year across the residential building, commercial building and civil construction sec- tors. Individual reports are available for each of the eight states and territories.
“Having been in reverse over recent years, we predict that new home building starts will bot- tom out during 2020/21 at around 159,000. We
then expect that resi- dential building will ex- pand and take dwelling commencements back above the
200,000 mark in 2024/25,” Garrett said. “Australia needs around 200,000 new homes to be built each year to meet future population growth. Our latest forecasts indicate that we are set to fall considerably short of this require-
ment for a few years yet.”
Meanwhile, Garrett said commercial building
activity will smash another record high this fi- nancial year before moving into reverse gear.
“Our economy is still growing well below trend. Carefully targeted initiatives aimed at stimulating building and construction can give it a big push in the right direction,” Garrett said.
Recent initiatives that have been praised by industry include the 2020 Infrastructure List which will kickstart a lot of major projects across Australia and the introduction of energy effi- ciency programs.
ABS data shows the volume of engineering construction work done during 2019 dropped by 11.8% compared with the previous year to record its lowest calendar year total since 2007.
“While engineering construction had a glum 2019, the same cannot be said about commercial building activity which hit a new record high last year. Residential building finished 8.1% low- er during 2019,” he said.
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