Decarbonising Infrastructure Delivery Policy: Towards Embodied-Carbon Integration Across Project Stages in New South Wales

Introduction

The New South Wales’ Decarbonising Infrastructure Delivery Policy (Infrastructure NSW) provides guidance to NSW Government infrastructure delivery agencies to ensure upfront carbon is considered from early project stages, and to achieve consistent measurement and reporting across NSW Government infrastructure projects. It applies to projects above clear capital-cost thresholds: $50 million for building sector projects and $100 million for all other infrastructure types.

Upfront-carbon reporting under the Policy

The Policy is written primarily for agencies, but it creates concrete reporting implications for contractors, designers, and suppliers because agencies need upstream data to meet their obligations. Key requirements include:

• Three mandatory measurement points: agencies must quantify upfront carbon at (1) business case, (2) planning approval / detailed design / procurement, and (3) project completion.

• Carbon Management Plan (CMP): agencies must prepare a Carbon Management Plan as part of a Final Business Case, documenting roles, responsibilities, procurement approach, and how reductions will be tracked and reported as the project progresses.

• Standardised reporting templates: the companion Technical Guidance sets expectations for how to report embodied carbon across the three stages, including use of templates and consistent breakdowns so results can be compared and benchmarked.

• EPDs as preferred emissions evidence (where available): the Technical Guidance’s data hierarchy prioritises product-specific emission factors, explicitly listing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for specific products and suppliers as the top-tier source.

Current status and future outlook

The Decarbonising Infrastructure Delivery Policy is now in operation and being implemented across New South Wales Government infrastructure delivery agencies. It officially became operational in April 2025, and agencies must apply its upfront-carbon measurement and reporting requirements to applicable projects with business cases initiated after that date.

NSW has also developed supporting tools, including a Decarbonisation Toolkit to help agencies and industry consistently capture and report embodied carbon at key stages from business case to practical completion.

Beyond upfront carbon, the policy and its Measurement Guidance are tied to broader efforts to embed carbon considerations into planning, procurement and delivery decisions, and are expected to evolve toward whole-life carbon approaches and national harmonisation in coming years.

Resources

• Decarbonising Infrastructure Delivery Policy (Infrastructure NSW) – official policy document.

• Decarbonising Infrastructure Delivery Policy – overview page and thresholds.

• Embodied Carbon Measurement for Infrastructure: Technical Guidance – measurement + reporting method, templates, EPD hierarchy.

• Templates page – Carbon Management Plan and reporting templates.