CIT Woden: Australia’s First Large Scale Infrastructure Project with CarbonCure
Location: Woden, ACT
CE Solution: CarbonCure
Completion: 2024
Our Project Partners:
- Hi-Quality Concrete
- LendLease
- ACT Government
The CIT Woden campus redevelopment was delivered under ambitious sustainability goals, with the ACT Government seeking meaningful and practical reductions in embodied carbon emissions across major project works in Canberra. To support this, the Lendlease project team focused on reducing the embodied carbon within construction materials themselves, adopting a combination of stackable solutions rather than relying on a single “green bullet”.
Ultimately the project incorporated engineered timber elements, passive design principles and an all-electric building approach to lower operational impact. However, with concrete forming a significant portion of the structure, addressing its embodied carbon became a key opportunity. With Hi-Quality Concrete supplying the project’s concrete, the team required a solution that could support lower embodied carbon outcomes while maintaining the required concrete performance and having no impact on placing and finishing practices. CE and CarbonCure provided that solution.
THE PROJECT:
The CIT Woden campus redevelopment project was built to replace existing aging facilities in Woden ACT with a purpose-built education precinct, providing state of the art vocational and training opportunities to Canberra’s students. A five-storey, 22,500m² building forms the centrepiece of a broader district including a youth foyer, upgraded public transport interchange and significant landscaping works. The campus delivers 66 practical learning spaces supporting technology, business and trade disciplines accommodating up to approximately 6,500 students each year.
THE CE SOLUTION:
Concrete is the most widely used man-made material on Earth. An essential part of our buildings and infrastructure, it is also one of construction’s largest contributors to their embodied carbon with cement production alone responsible for roughly 8% of global Co2 emissions.
Working alongside ACT Government and Lendlease, the CIT Woden project incorporated CarbonCure as a practical way to reduce emissions within the concrete used. While CarbonCure is a widely used international technology, for CE Construction Solutions, Hi-Quality Concrete and CarbonCure, the development marked a major milestone, as the first large-scale project where the CarbonCure technology was specified and adopted in Australia.
CarbonCure technology works by injecting a precise dose of captured CO₂ into the concrete at the batching plant, where it permanently mineralises within the mix. The process happens seamlessly during normal concrete production, meaning the concrete is delivered, placed and finished exactly as expected on site. It was a practical way to significantly reduce the emissions of one of the project’s largest-volume building materials, without changing how the project was built.
As Mark Dawes, General Manager Hi-Quality Concrete noted, that for the on-site teams it was business as usual, “They can’t really tell the difference between it and regular concrete, from plastic state through to hardened state.” The concrete was placed, finished and cured using standard practices, allowing the project to reduce emissions without any delays or disruption to the overall program.
For the project team, CarbonCure provided more than a theoretical benefit, it delivered a real measurable way of reducing the project’s carbon footprint while maintaining the strength, durability, and reliability demanded of concrete into large scale infrastructure works.
THE NEXT STEPS:
As Australia’s first large-scale infrastructure project to specify CarbonCure, CIT Woden establishes a new benchmark for how public infrastructure works can approach embodied carbon reduction in building materials like concrete.
Rather than waiting for a theoretical ‘green bullet’ to save the industry. The real innovation is utilising available, proven and stackable solutions. CIT Woden is an example of how you can have significant, measurable carbon reductions on major infrastructure projects today.
As sustainability targets tighten across government, residential and commercial sectors, projects that move early in adopting these proven solutions will define the new standard. CIT Woden is not simply a low-carbon building, it signals the reality of where concrete construction is heading.
“Lendlease are working with partners such as our suppliers and subcontractors who share our ambitions of lowering emissions on projects like CIT Woden.” – Charlotte Armstrong
Embodied carbon reduction is no longer an “nice to try”, it’s the expectation of concrete construction in Australia
The question is no longer ‘if’. It’s who’s next.
Author: Sarah Ackerly
Business Development Manager
CE Construction Solutions