Sustainability

The Precinct is the key national project that will underpin the Territory, Australia and our region achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

It will be largely powered by renewables (a global-first for an industrial precinct), will use modern technology to achieve low-to-zero emissions, is master planned to achieve a ‘circular economy’ approach; and will support the Territory economy's transition to being more sustainable for the longer term.

A number of overarching sustainability principles have been embedded in the Precinct design and these include:

• Industrial circular economy principles, involving the sharing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling of existing materials to maximise economic benefits and minimise environmental impacts.
• Maximising the use of shared infrastructure, reducing impact footprint and enabling circular economy opportunities, including common user infrastructure – roads, marine facilities, product and services corridors; an industrial wastewater treatment system once there are sufficient volumes of wastewater; renewable energy network; and collection and transport of carbon dioxide to an offsite storage.
• Colocation of industries that share similar characteristics and opportunities to maximise the use of shared infrastructure, thereby reducing impact footprint.
• Targeting a low emissions Precinct, including integration of large-scale renewable energy and carbon capture and network that support decarbonisation to achieving net zero.
• Efficient water use, including recycling where possible.
• Increasing self-sufficiency in supply chains and manufacturing capacity to provide an opportunity to build local manufacturing and capabilities.

Supporting or driving the development of other regional conservation initiatives and ensuring the Precinct planning is well aligned and integrated to these.

The Precinct will be home to:

• Critical minerals processing, vital to make energy transition products like batteries that are needed for renewables.
• Advanced-manufacturing of those transition products (like batteries).
• Reliable, clean energy industries including zero-emission renewables (i.e. solar and green hydrogen) and lower-emission energy and fuels (i.e. blue hydrogen and natural gas) which are needed to transition to a net zero emissions future.
• A world-class carbon capture and storage facility that will capture at least 90% of emissions at the source and provide an option for other states and countries to store theirs. Work is underway with CSIRO and private industry to develop the carbon capture and storage facility PDF (215.9 KB).

Circular economy principals of sustainable and responsible production involve sharing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials to maximise benefits and minimise environmental impacts.

To read more about how the Territory is supporting circular economy, go to the Invest NT website.

Precinct planning began in 2019 with environmental safeguards and the protection of Darwin Harbour given high priority. This involves an overarching environmental performance framework and extensive research including:

• 115+ environmental deliverables such as:
  • air quality assessment
  • water quality assessment
  • marine ecology study
  • human health impact assessment
  • noise, traffic and visual amenity studies
  • flora and fauna conservation strategy
  • social impact assessment
  • archaeological study
  • economic impact assessment.
• 46+ marine deliverables such as:
  • jetty engineering design
  • module off-loading facility design
  • marine navigation and traffic study
  • shipping channel dredging studies.
• 80+ land development and industry planning deliverables such as:
  • shared infrastructure designs such as roads, water and electricity supply, product corridors, drainage, wastewater treatment, land layouts, governance framework models.

The project was referred to the independent NT Environment Protection Authority, as required under the Northern Territory Environment Protection Act 2019, and a Strategic Environmental Assessment Agreement has been signed with the Australian Government under the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

Strategic assessments consider a broad set of development activities over a larger scale and timeframe. By assessing cumulative impacts - rather than individual projects assessments in isolation - there is greater certainty for industry and community and better environmental outcomes. The strategic environmental assessment will consider scenarios of development and their implications. It will determine the potential cumulative impacts, provide a list of approved industry types and conditions, define the acceptable limits of development and outline desired sustainability outcomes. The assessment process will occur over a number of years, to ensure the project reduces, mitigates and offsets potential environmental impacts.