The Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) has released its Second Plank Update Report 2010.

The report by ASBEC’s Climate Change Task Group updates findings from ASBEC’s The Second Plank Report: Building a Low Carbon Economy with Energy Efficient Buildings, released in September 2008.

The updated report provides an economic analysis of the potential role the building sector can play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) through additional energy efficiency measures.

It takes into account the Australian Government’s Renewable Energy Target (RET), policy measures and programs and forecasts energy efficiency savings under both a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and a non-CPRS scenario.

The report shows that under both scenarios there are significant additional GHG savings that can be made. Key findings include:

- under a CPRS, additional energy efficiency measures would achieve a further reduction of 33.2 megatonnes of emissions

- in the absence of a CPRS, additional energy efficiency measures would realise a reduction of 46.7 megatonnes of emissions (this is a larger figure because the CPRS would achieve some of the energy efficiency potential abatement). This represents a reduction of around 5.5 per cent of Australia’s total GHG

The report highlights the impediments and market failures that prevent the building sector from reaching its full GHG abatement potential, including the funding gap problem.

"We acknowledge the energy efficiency measures the Australian Government has initiated to date, however, our updated second plank report clearly demonstrates Australia can reap further benefits from the contribution the building sector can make to emissions abatement," says David Parken, chair of the Climate Change Task Group and CEO of the Australian Institute of Architects.

The Climate Change Task Group is calling for high priority policy approaches to achieve the building sector’s GHG abatement potential, including accelerated green depreciation; a national white certificate scheme; and public funding for building retrofits.