To reach the milestone, almost 80 Melbourne buildings each year would need major upgrades and refurbishments to improve energy performance – a significantly higher rate currently being delivered by the market.

According to the City of Melbourne, commercial buildings are responsible for 60 per cent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions, while residential towers account for six per cent of emissions.

The Zero Carbon Buildings for Melbourne discussion paper outlines potential initiatives the City of Melbourne and building owners, tenants, industry associates, facility managers and governments could implement to support the transition of city buildings to net zero emissions by 2040.

These include:

• Developing zero carbon building leases – agreement between landlords and tenants to ensure the ongoing use and operation of zero carbon buildings
• Establishing a carbon risk tool – understanding the future risk of carbon for mid and low-tier buildings
• Incentivising periodic commercial building disclosure – a program to encourage periodic reporting of a building’s NABERS rating
• Promoting joint procurement – supporting lower grade and ungraded buildings to increase capacity to carry out deep retrofits jointly
• Convening zero carbon building retrofit teams – to create a more collaborative, relational way of working
• Incentivising building performance through rates – using rates to encourage emissions reduction
• Introducing an emissions cap through local law – establishing an emissions ceiling for buildings.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp said: “We’re proud to be leading Melbourne’s transition to becoming a zero net emissions city by 2040, but we can’t achieve this ambitious goal alone.”

“By working alongside key industry, academic and government partners, we can accelerate our journey towards zero net emissions– reducing costs and improving our environment.”

The discussion paper is open to responses via Participate Melbourne, with feedback to inform the development of the City of Melbourne’s Zero Carbon Building Implementation Plan to be delivered in mid-2023.

Victorian Chamber advocacy

Victorian Chamber General Manager Policy and Advocacy Dylan Broomfield said: “VCCI believes transforming and retrofitting buildings will lower our emissions while increasing the asset value of our city’s buildings. Improving the energy efficiency of our buildings is a crucial pillar to lowering the energy cost burden on business, while attracting more workers back into the CBD.

“While the Victorian Chamber welcomes these initiatives, we hope all local, state and federal jurisdictions align on emission targets, which will help businesses plan effectively into the future.”

The Victorian Chamber has further recommendations from our 2022 State Election Platform and 2022-2023 Federal Budget Submission on clean energy and sustainable infrastructure that will propel our state with confidence towards a net-zero future. These include:

• Fund an energy subsidy scheme to incentivise commercial landlords to install renewable energy infrastructure
• Commit to reviewing and implementing ways to regulate the energy market to ensure certainty of supply and certainty of price for users
• Create a clean energy roadmap that drives planning and development of clean-tech enablers to reach Victoria’s 50 per cent carbon reduction target by 2030
• Incentivise businesses to adopt energy-saving technologies, equipment and products to lower day-to-day expenses
• Provide a national roadmap on how Australia effectively transitions towards renewable energy to businesses so that they can plan for and commence the transition to clean energy
• Scale the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain Project or invite a similar public-private ventures to boost Victoria’s advanced manufacturing sector and produce a secure, reliable, domestic supply of hydrogen
• Introduce a subsidy for industries transitioning to clean hydrogen as a primary
  energy source to kickstart the transition to clean energy
• Fund more ultra-rapid electric vehicle charging stations or provide further support for the charging vehicle network to encourage more Australians to transition to electric vehicles.

The Victorian Chamber will continue to work with industry and governments to advance the state’s interests. Our full 2022 State Election Platform, Powering Victoria’s future, is available via this link and our 2022-2023 Federal Budget Submission, Activating Victorian Business, is available here.