29 Jun 2026
Recent global fuel security concerns have sharpened attention on Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels. It can be seen in households purchasing their first EV, businesses reducing air travel and governments deepening commitments to renewable energy. Each sector of the community is adjusting, but it’s an adjustment some Australian construction and equipment companies had already started to make.
GBCA’s recent webinar, Insights into decarbonising construction in action, unpacked several of these practical real-world examples. Below we look at the problems, solutions and barriers while the full webinar details available tools, examples and practical first steps projects can take to cut construction emissions now. To explore further you can purchase and watch the recording here.
1. Construction, we have a diesel problem
Emissions from construction sit at 5-10% of a project's emissions profile, mainly from the fossil fuels used to power machinery, equipment and temporary site offices. Sam Donaldson, Hub Sustainability Leader at Laing O’Rourke, opened the webinar by reminding attendees about our sector’s heavy reliance on liquid fossil fuels, but added that we’re not alone, which creates an opportunity.
“We can look at decarbonisation at a project level, at a company level, even at an industry level. We share this common denominator around our reliance on fossil fuels with other sectors, creating a cross-industry opportunity. This could mean a faster way of looking at trying to transition to low carbon construction.”
Mark Gjerek, Managing Director at MOV3MENT, said diesel is “fantastically versatile”, but that statement came with a large “but”. “Diesel is a very versatile and very energy dense fuel… but it’s also a dumb fuel - more than half of the energy that you put into the fuel tank gets wasted, and what goes into the air drives climate change and health problems. It's a fuel that has served its purpose but it's time to find better options.”
Robyn Simpson, National Manager Environment & Sustainability at Coates, said the company estimates its generators alone used around 130 million litres of diesel across customer sites in the past year. While that figure is “rubbery”, because Coates cannot precisely track customer fuel use, the data points to the scale of the problem, and the size of the opportunity.
2. No single solution but many pathways
Speakers made clear that decarbonising construction sites will require a mix of solutions: electrifying plant and equipment where feasible, switching to lower-carbon fuels, improving energy efficiency, solar, batteries and hybrid systems for site power.
Kristin Moss, Head of Policy at the Australian Constructors Association, said the solutions must happen at scale to create impact. “As an industry, we need to think about it more holistically as opposed to project by project.”
Mark pointed to the health and wider environmental benefits of switching. “From a workplace health perspective, these alternative pathways are obviously good options.”
Robyn later reinforced this. “No noise, no diesel particulate matter in the working environment - that’s a really big advantage that can be derived from electrifying or hybridising equipment… If we want to attract people to the construction industry, it needs to look and be different.”
3. Lifting barriers
Speakers agreed the barriers to cleaner construction are not a lack of ambition, but the systems around project delivery. These include high costs, long-lived assets, limited supply, inconsistent client demand, grid constraints and weak policy support.
Sam said, “We’ve got assets here that cost a lot. They also have long life attached to them, so that transition is much more difficult to do… progress has been slow, not because of the lack of effort of companies in this sector, but due to a few systematic constraints.”
Renewable diesel shows the scale of the challenge. It can be used as a drop-in replacement for diesel without modifying equipment, but Sam noted Australia has no domestic suppliers and the imported product can cost around 60–70% more than standard diesel.
Kristin said this is where “coordinated policy, procurement and demand signals matter most.” Rather than asking each project to solve supply, cost and logistics alone, clients, government and industry can help create the conditions that make lower-carbon choices easier to adopt and scale.
The full webinar goes beyond these takeaways to show what decarbonisation looks like in practice on real construction sites. Speakers share practical ways to use data to uncover where diesel is being burned, how to test new technologies properly, and where simple changes can deliver immediate savings. You can access it here