Worley, Princeton add warning indicators to net zero delivery report

Worley Ltd (ASX:WOR) and Princeton University have included 15 indicators of change in the second report in the series known as From Ambition to Reality, which explored five shifts needed to deliver a net-zero transition.

The indicators, outlined in the new report by the global engineering firm and Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment are intended to provide for measuring, adjusting and correcting infrastructure delivery, so that it comes at a scale and speed sufficient to achieve mid-century net-zero targets.

“We developed the five shifts and the indicators of change to describe how the delivery of major industrial infrastructure needs to change to build the scale and enable the speed of delivery required to get to net zero by 2050,” said Sue Brown, executive director, Sustainability at Worley.

The five shifts include standardisation, creating partnerships, and digital platforms. They further include considering projects’ social and environmental value, in addition to financial value, and also enabling options, or addressing uncertainty through the development of all technologies.

The new report, “From Ambition to Reality 2: Measuring change in the race to deliver net zero,” explores transformational examples such as developing vaccines in one rather than 10 years through parallel development and partnerships, and assembling a bridge in a week thanks to modular design.

The authors propose three leading indicators of change per shift and plan a survey to track them year on year from 2023 to 2030. For instance, the proposed indicators for standartisation include standard and modular designs, supply chain orders and project timelines. The expectation is that by 2030 standards and standardised designs should be widespread even in complex industries.

To illustrate the net-zero challenge, the report says that Australia will require up to 3,000 GW of new renewables by 2050, replicating the total world renewable current fleet.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!