Decarbonisation award – Building Nations

Pictured: Scott Elwarth, Sarah Sutherland, CRL Ltd CE Sean Sweeney and Hugh Leersnyder

This month the project was rewarded for efforts to achieve sustainability excellence at the Building Nations 2050 Impact Awards.

Our main contractors, Link Alliance, won the prestigious Decarbonisation Outcome Award (projects over $20 million). By integrating decarbonisation into decision-making, the City Rail Link (CRL) is on track to reduce carbon emissions by 60,500 tCO2e over its 100-year design life. This 19 per cent reduction decreases the expected carbon payback time once the CRL is operational to under six years.

Industry-leading decarbonisation measures that have contributed to this reduction include:

• Replacing cement in concrete with fly-ash – a waste product from coal-fired power plants. The Project is on track to replace 26% of cement with fly-ash reducing the Alliance’s concrete emissions footprint by 18%

• Changing the mined tunnel designs to reduce excavation by 45% at Maungawhau/Mount Eden Station and 11% at Karanga-a-Hape Station (Karangahape)