Circularity needed at scale for Aust building industry

Australia’s Circular Economy Framework, launched in late 2024, outlines an ambition to double our circularity by 2035. Currently, Australia repurposes just 4.5% of its materials — below the global average of 7.2% and less than half the European Union’s 11.5%.

“How can we get more dollars out of the materials that we take out of the ground?” Professor John Thwaites AM, inaugural Chair of the Circular Economy Taskforce, challenged the packed room at TRANSFORM 2025.

The statistics outlined in the Framework state that per capita, Australia has the highest material footprint of the G20, at more than 31 tonnes per person. Every year, Australian firms spend $1.4 billion sending $26.5 billion worth of material to landfill, and we generate just US$1.20 of economic output for every kilogram of materials we consume, compared with the OECD average of US$2.50.

Meeting the Framework’s goal to double our circularity by 2035 could add $26 billion to GDP annually, CSIRO modelling finds, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 14% and diverting 26 million tonnes of material from landfill each year.

The built environment — buildings and infrastructure — presents the “biggest opportunity” for Australia to reduce our material footprint, cut emissions, save money, create jobs and strengthen local supply chains, Thwaites said at the recent TRANSFORM conference.

“Sustainability at scale” is an enduring mantra of the GBCA, and circularity at scale is said to require more than a building-by-building approach.

The GBCA’s new Practical guide to circular procurement, launched at TRANSFORM, was developed in collaboration with GHD, the NSW, Queensland and South Australian Governments and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). Its goal is to translate the lessons learnt from individual case studies to action at a larger scale. Or, as Davina Rooney, CEO of the GBCA, said, “We have enough cheerleaders for circularity. Now we need more athletes.”

Day one of the Green Building Council of Australia event coincided with Australia’s Overshoot Day (19 March) — the day when our consumption of the planet’s annual biocapacity budget would be spent if everyone on Earth lived like Australians. For GHD’s circular economy specialist Huia Adkins, co-author of the Practical guide, Australia’s Overshoot Day is a clarion call. “We need to do more, and we need to do it quickly.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Fahroni