Spoil management saves millions

Our forthcoming community at Newport (Qld) on the Redcliffe Peninsula will feature a range of waterside and waterfront homes, a retail and dining precinct, a retirement village, foreshore parks, and a proposed 23-hectare lake with access to Moreton Bay.

The earthworks required to develop a site like Newport can be emissions intensive and often require sending large amounts of dirt off site to landfill. As with all of our developments, we have worked with our contractors to deliver sustainable outcomes on construction sites, such as minimising the environmental impacts from earthworks.

At Newport, we worked with our principal contractor to develop a refined spoil management strategy that enabled the project to reuse 1.5 million cubic metres of spoil on site. That’s over 600 Olympic swimming pools worth of material that may have otherwise ended up in landfill.

Earthworks at Newport also prioritised the use of scoops over dump trucks to transport dirt, given the relative fuel efficiency of scoops. Prioritising scoops saved the project over 114,000 litres of fuel.

This equates to a saving of over $135,000 (using 2016 average Queensland diesel fuel price of $1.192 per litre) and over 305,000 kg CO₂-e of greenhouse gas emissions avoided.

The project saved over $3.5 million by not having to pay to export material off site and import new material.

These sustainable earthworks initiatives at Newport protect our natural environment, save money, and improve the competitiveness of our business and our suppliers. Our leadership in sustainable development was a key factor in receiving approval to proceed with Newport, further underscoring the value of sustainable practices for efficient property development that delivers value for us, our suppliers, and the communities in which we operate.