The Role of Quantity Surveyor in Construction Sector to Now Monitor Embodied & Operational Carbon

As an extension of their standard services to determine costs, the Quantity Surveyor in construction and engineering projects in Australia will now have to report on sustainability suitability.

Australia is behind other leading Western countries in highlighting this role, towards a more sustainable future. Embodied and operational carbon is responsible for 28% of carbon emissions from buildings today; a number likely to grow to 50% by 2050. This is reported by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in 2021.

To comply with relevant Australian Standards, Quantity Surveyors should now be measuring and quantifying the total carbon footprint of a building. This includes embodied carbon, life cycle costs and operational carbon.

Current projects that are targetting reduced embodied and operational carbon are the 40-storey Atlassian commercial building, located next to Sydney’s Central Station and TrueGreen’s newly announced 49-storey timber office building set for Sydney’s CBD.

These upcoming development projects aim to boast 100% renewable energy services and carbon-neutral operations, respectively. They also reflect the push towards the ‘Whole of Life’ approach against carbon-heavy materials.