Case study: Bridge42’s road to net zero

Consulting firm Bridge42 rebranded during the pandemic with a bold, purpose-led vision. As part of their evolution, they placed sustainability at their core and achieved carbon neutral certification through Climate Active in 2021. Alexander Knight MAIPM CPPM shares their journey.

What is Climate Active?

It is a government-backed program that drives voluntary climate action by supporting Australian individuals, businesses and government to protect the climate.

How do you become carbon neutral?

To get carbon neutral certification, businesses and organisations calculate their greenhouse gas emissions, then they reduce their emissions by investing in new technology or changing the way they do business. Any remaining emissions are offset to achieve carbon-neutral status

Sustainability leadership in project management

Addressing the impacts of climate change is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of our time and massive action is needed to realise the ambitious, but necessary, net zero emissions by 2050 target of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Bridge42 is a national consulting firm providing strategic, future-focused and vertically integrated property advisory, development and project management services for circa $10 billion in land, master planning and built form developments.

Our status as a Climate Active network member demonstrates that we are taking responsibility for our carbon emissions and aggressively seeking ways to reduce our carbon footprint. We chose not to rely solely on government policies to drive change or have a ‘someone else will fix it’ mindset. Instead of leaving our world in a far worse condition for generations to come we decided to do take action to address climate change.

We have evolved from an organisation which historically monitored and targeted the reduction of resource consumption, to one which leverages a 360-degree view to minimise the carbon footprint of our facilities and operations across Australia.

Following our first year of certification, our target of a 5% carbon emissions reduction was easily surpassed with a 26% reduction for the following financial year. We now have our sights set on achieving a further 25% reduction from the 2021-22 financial year by 2025.

We’ve developed, embedded and implemented an organisation-wide Emission Reduction Policy as part of our Safety, Health and Environment Management Systems (SHEMS) corporate portfolio. This will ensure that we achieve our carbon reduction commitment.

Lessons from our carbon assessment journey

Bridge42’s journey through the comprehensive Climate Active certification and recertification processes has provided invaluable first-hand knowledge and insights.

Our learnings identified four key steps for taking climate action:

1. Undertake a carbon neutral assessment – whether you encourage your own organisation or a client’s organisation to take this step, gaining first-hand experience is the most effective path to understand the ins and outs of carbon measurement, analysis and reduction. It is also an important way to provide transparency and a baseline ascertaining how much carbon is being produced and the key sources, as well as to identify opportunities for carbon reduction.
2. Focus on what you can control – set clear, measurable goals in the first instance by identifying the quick wins and low-hanging fruit to kickstart momentum and allow for a targeted approach in reducing carbon emissions. Other areas for reduction can be subsequently prioritised and addressed as you glean more knowledge and learnings.
3. Create the right structure for impact – implementing and communicating high-level policies, led by a top-down management approach, is by far the most effective process for organisations to achieve the greatest impact. Relying on individual staff to change their habits and choices in relation to consumption, waste and more is the least reliable method to curb an organisation’s carbon emissions.
4. A continuous commitment to climate action – true climate action should not be taken to simply tick a box or to greenwash an organisation’s reputation. The intention must be to proactively undertake regular measurement and analysis and set and reset reduction targets with the ultimate end goal of net zero emissions.

Scaling our impact in the built environment

Bridge42 recognises the built environment sector is a key contributor of carbon emissions. The construction, operation and maintenance of buildings accounts for almost 25% of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia (source: The Conversation).

We have the responsibility to play a key role in managing the impacts of our industry. We are collectively accountable to act now, take up the challenge, and facilitate change. Equipped with an intimate knowledge of carbon assessment and certification, we are well-placed to share our lived-knowledge and assist other organisations with the planning and development of responsible, futureproofed assets.

We are contributing to Australia’s net zero commitment through working with likeminded clients on projects which include establishing carbon assessments to report on carbon generation and modelling the long-term year-on-year carbon footprints of structures. This enables the application of a directed approach at a building’s business case to discover the true future cost of assets.

The buildings we construct today will soon be measured by the annual cost of carbon neutrality and refit costs to reduce the building’s footprint to meet the Australian Government’s 2030 and 2050 emissions reduction targets.

In working with our clients and partners to better understand their carbon footprint and empower them to commence their respective climate action journeys, we seek to achieve a greater impact across the property and construction industry in support of Australia’s net zero commitment.

This article is taken from the Autumn 2023 edition of Paradigm Shift