Environmental sustainability

The Victorian Health Building Authority (VHBA) Net Zero Building Handbook (PDF, 13MB) marks a significant step in VHBA's commitment to decarbonise Victoria's health infrastructure.

It sets clear targets and actions to reduce whole life carbon emissions across Victoria’s health infrastructure delivery pipeline and embeds net zero principles into every stage of the asset lifecycle.

The Victorian Government’s commitment to supplying all major hospitals with renewable energy as of 1 July 2025 means that most of a new hospital’s whole life carbon impact is due to the embodied carbon of its building materials, which is a focus of the VHBA Net Zero Building Handbook.

VHBA delivers projects ranging from small refurbishments to major acute hospitals, therefore, requirements set in the handbook are scaled to fit.

The decarbonisation targets in the handbook ramp up over time to accelerate action towards the 2045 state government net zero commitment.

Key targets and requirements up to 2028 include:

Small projects (less than $20 million) requirements

• consider reduced embodied carbon materials

Medium project (more than $20 million) requirements

• 15% reduction in energy demand (excluding contribution of onsite solar)
• Recycled First Policy
• structural concrete and steel environmental product declarations (EPD’s)
• renewable electricity for construction
• iterative energy analysis during design.

Large project (more than $50 million) requirements

• 15% reduction in upfront embodied carbon emissions due to construction of the asset (excluding the contribution of carbon offsets)
• iterative carbon analysis during design
• reduced impact construction phase
• enhanced engineering services commissioning (ICA).

Major Project (more than $250 million) requirements

• large project requirements
• digital engineering integration
• carbon management plan.

Find out more by reading our Net Zero Building Handbook (PDF, 13MB).

For an accessible version of the handbook please email vhba@vida.vic.gov.au.

The health projects we build follow our Guidelines for sustainability in health care capital works. These guidelines follow key principles:

• Hospitals are healing environments. This means having healthy indoor environments, connections to nature, and buildings that promote an active lifestyle.
• Passive design is paramount. This means having better building envelopes that reduce the need for heating and cooling. Better building envelopes improve comfort for people inside.
• Minimise use of resources. This means reducing carbon emissions, adaptive reuse of existing buildings where possible, and promoting the circular economy.
• Hospitals are resilient to climate change. Health facilities are often busier during extreme weather conditions, like heat waves and floods. They need to maintain operational capacity at these times.

The guidelines include a comprehensive set of ‘business-as-usual’ sustainability requirements. These requirements elevate the sustainability baseline above statutory requirements. The guidelines include a 2.5% sustainability budget that is invested in initiatives that go above and beyond the business-as-usual requirements. Some examples of how we invest the 2.5% budget in capital works projects include:

• improving insulation and glazing performance above code requirements
• designing well-sealed buildings that are verified through building air leakage testing
• high efficiency air-conditioning systems
• solar panels
• electric vehicle charging stations
• biophilic design elements to increase connection to nature
• use of sustainable construction materials.

The Victorian Government is committed to combatting climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. All new state government projects that have not yet reached the design stage must be all-electric. The new Melton Hospital will be Victoria’s first new stand-alone all-electric hospital. Works will start in 2024.

Read more about the new all-electric policy.

Large acute hospitals are the most energy-intensive public buildings in Australia. They are also the second most energy-intensive building type in Australia.

That’s why we are running several programs to improve their environmental performance. Our programs include:

• $40 million Energy Efficiency and Solar Program
• $13.5 million Regional Health Solar Fund
• $7 million Peninsula Health energy performance contract
• Release of NABERS Public Hospitals energy and water ratings on the Sustainable Portfolio Index.

Climate change is a global economic, social, environmental and public health issue. It poses significant consequences for our health and wellbeing. Climate change also poses many risks to infrastructure. We must consider these risks when locating, designing, building and maintaining assets. If the risks aren’t considered, the assets may not last as long. The costs of running the infrastructure may also increase over time.

Risks to health infrastructure from climate change include:

• inundation due to sea level rise
• riverine and inland flooding
• soil contraction shifting foundations
• extreme windstorms
• bushfire and smoke damage
• hot days and heatwaves
• legionella growth
• amplification of other pathogens and microbes.

Each of these pose risks to people’s comfort, health and lives.

The Department of Health has released a climate change adaptation action plan 2022-26. This plan details how we are embedding climate change into our health infrastructure pipeline.