A $6.9 million program to make 45 of the landmark buildings in Sydney’s central business district more energy efficient has been started by the City of Sydney, despite the decision in this week’s federal budget to drop the green building incentive program.
Under the City of Sydney’s move, the upgrade to the assets is forecast to save more than $1 million a year on water and energy bills.
The lord mayor, Clover Moore, said the two-year, $6.9 million project would include Town Hall House, Customs House, pools, community centres, libraries and car parks across the city.
However, in the 2012 budget the federal government said it would scrap the $1 billion tax breaks for green building.
The director of sustainability at Jones Lang LaSalle, Joel Quintal, said the decision was a backward step for the commercial property industry.
”This initiative was aimed at encouraging green retrofitting of buildings and is a disappointing result for the greening of the commercial property industry,” he said.
”The government had already delayed the start date of the program by a year and now we learn the program has been scrapped even before it started.
”We are disappointed and hope to see further programs of this nature included in future budgets.”
The head of sustainability for Colliers International, Simon Cox, said the move would hinder the market.
”It will take $1 billion of encouragement and potential refurbishment work out of the industry, so it has downstream impacts on not just energy consumption and carbon output but employment and business generation,” he said.
”While the program had a couple of bumps to be ironed out, the general concept was good and we need to find other ways to encourage particularly those really low-performing buildings to undertake necessary work to improve their efficiency and carbon output. This program would have delivered that.”
The chief executive of the Property Council of Australia, Peter Verwer, was more vehement, saying the government had broken its promise to seed the retro-greening of commercial buildings.
”The billion-dollar Tax Breaks for Green Buildings incentive, which was announced during the last election, would have leveraged up to $7 of private sector spending for every dollar of government funding,” Mr Verwer said.
”The incentive would have proved a huge employment boon for the construction industry, which has been savagely hit by a post-GFC downturn.
”Unlike so many other government programs, the green building incentive was only to be paid on the delivery of independently certified greenhouse gas abatement, based on tough environmental benchmarks.
”Unlike so many other government programs, the green building incentive was only to be paid on the delivery of independently certified greenhouse gas abatement, based on tough environmental benchmarks.”
In the retrofitting scheme from the City of Sydney, Cr Moore said energy-inefficient lights were being replaced at Customs House, while heating and air-conditioning systems at Sydney Town Hall, Ultimo Community Centre and Victoria Park Pool were being upgraded.
