Knauf Australia is proud to have been involved with the Barangaroo Development in Sydney, completed in 2015.
Barangaroo incorporates a number of different buildings. The first buildings under construction were the Alexander and Anadara residential buildings, located on the western fringe of Barangaroo South, overlooking Sydney Harbour. The buildings consist of 159 apartments, with a ground level retail space which amounts to a combined floor space of 18,225 square meters.
With sustainable construction and living being a big focus for new developments, especially for Government projects, the developer for the project, Lendlease was fully committed to a range of sustainability initiatives.
Lendlease approached their Alliance Partner, Knauf Australia to explore ways that they could work together to reduce the carbon footprint associated with the supply and installation of plasterboard for the project.
One of their targets was a 20% reduction in Embodied Carbon (EC). EC is the sum of all greenhouse gas emissions that are created over the life cycle of a product, from cradle to grave, which encompasses product development, product use and product deconstruction and disposal.
With Knauf’s existing commitment to reducing the environmental impact of their manufacturing and installation processes, and with internal plasterboard wall linings making up a significant proportion of the building materials, this presented a substantial opportunity to investigate ways to reduce the EC at Barangaroo.
With the full support of Lendlease, and a head start from their commitment to sustainability, Knauf Australia achieved carbon neutrality for the three plasterboard products, MastaShield, WaterShield and FireShield that were used at Barangaroo.
“Having the partnership of Lendlease, and their commitment to significantly lowering carbon emissions, meant that we were able to commit resources to creating a carbon neutral program for these products that could then be rolled out for future projects and allow Knauf to be able to offer a carbon neutral option to meet sustainable design requirements,” said Kathryn Walker, Knauf Australia’s National Sustainability Manager.
Whilst there are a number of companies that offer carbon neutral products, Knauf Australia is the only plasterboard manufacturer to successfully have met the standards of the Australian Government’s National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS) to provide carbon neutral boards to the construction industry.
Image courtesy of Lendlease.
