SP0020p1: Government Procurement for Sustainability Outcomes

This project builds on the results of CRC LCL project SP0009 (Policy and regulation for Low Carbon Outcomes in the Built Environment) which found that:

• ‘Government procurement standards for offices have not been revised for many years…’ (p11 of report) and
• ‘with the understanding that many jurisdictions are currently reviewing such policies and considering new performance requirements, we would strongly encourage those jurisdictions to understand of the importance and systemic benefits of setting high rather than low standards [for government procurement].’ (p35 of report).

Gather evidence to inform policy decisions and business cases for government procurement of new and leased buildings, and other products. Evidence includes “whole of life” asset costs and benefits and return on investment assumptions for these topics:

• new high efficient, all electric and low carbon buildings.
• requiring higher energy productivity buildings and other products, such as vehicles.
• consideration for carbon neutral certification through the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS).
• provision of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
• provision for local energy trading from a microgrid ecosystem featuring renewable energy and storage on building sites.

Building types included:

• offices
• datacenters
• places of education
• hospitals.

Locations included:

• capital cities
• regional cities and towns.

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SP0020p1: Final Report: Government Procurement for Sustainability Outcomes

This project, commissioned by the Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living (CRCLCL), aims to advance an important aspect of the National Energy Productivity Plan: specifically, Item 12, ‘improving energy productivity in government’.

In 2015, the COAG Energy Council agreed that each government within the Council should endeavour to improve the energy productivity of their own operations. The Plan commits jurisdictions to work with each other and with stakeholders to share learnings in the development and implementation of government energy productivity and efficiency measures, to improve government energy use using the most effective approaches.

In this context, the CRCLCL commissioned this project to analyse a range of prioritised opportunities, as nominated by governments themselves. These were:

1. New high efficiency, all electric and low carbon buildings (offices, data centres, places of education, hospitals)
2. Requiring higher energy productivity buildings (driving retrofits)
3. Consideration for carbon neutral certification through the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS) – although it was later agreed that carbon neutral certification would not be investigated as part of this report
4. High efficiency and lower carbon internal combustion engine vehicles - where duty cycles are not suited to electric vehicles (EVs)
5. EVs where duty cycles are appropriate plus provision of EV charging infrastructure
6. Energy procurement – consideration of power purchase agreements (PPAs) for renewable energy and provision for local energy trading from a microgrid ecosystem featuring renewable energy and storage on building sites.

Officials representing the Australian Government, the ACT and NSW Governments, and also the University of Melbourne, contributed data and other inputs, and participated in a Project Steering Committee.  This Final Report incorporates comments received from the Steering Committee on an Exposure Draft Final Report. 

Government Procurement for Sustainability Outcomes (3457696 PDF)