Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop: What It Signals for LCLF in Major Infrastructure
Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop is becoming a useful case study in how major government infrastructure projects can connect construction emissions, alternative fuels and contractor accountability.
The project does not publicly impose a single, project-wide requirement for every contractor to use HVO or renewable diesel at a fixed percentage. However, the SRLA Annual Sustainability Report 2025 shows that low-carbon fuels are already being measured and used on the project.
That distinction is important. SRL East combines an overall construction-emissions target with a separate low-carbon-fuel metric. For contractors and fuel suppliers, this creates a framework in which lower-carbon liquid fuels can contribute to sustainability performance while also being tracked as a distinct category.
Three Major SRL East packages
SRL East is being delivered through several major packages. The three most relevant to construction fuel use are Tunnels South, Tunnels North and Linewide:
| Package | Scope | Delivery partner | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tunnels South | Approximately 16 kilometres of twin tunnels between Cheltenham and Glen Waverley, together with station boxes, cross-passages and associated works | Suburban Connect: CPB Contractors, Ghella and Acciona Construction Australia |
| 2 | Tunnels North | Twin tunnels between Glen Waverley and Box Hill, together with associated construction works | Terra Verde: Webuild, GS Engineering & Construction Australia and Bouygues Construction Australia |
| 3 | Linewide | Tunnel fit-out, signalling, systems, rolling stock, stabling, operational facilities and network operations and maintenance | Linewide Alliance: John Holland, KBR, WSP, Alstom and RATP Dev/TransitLinX entities |
The 20% Emissions Reduction Target
SRLA’s published Sustainability Objectives and Targets include a target for a 20% reduction in construction greenhouse-gas emissions.
The framework also requires the project to reduce embodied emissions, maximise electrical construction plant and maximise the use of alternative low-carbon fuel sources. The 20% figure is an overall construction-emissions target.
For 2025, contractor modelling estimated:
Tunnels South: a 25% reduction by project completion.
Tunnels North: a 22% reduction by project completion.
These are early-stage modelled estimates.
Low Carbon Liquid Fuel in Construction
SRLA also reports a separate percentage low-carbon fuels metric. This measures the share of non-electrical energy supplied by biofuels and other low-carbon fuel sources, independently of the overall construction-emissions result.
For Initial and Early Works, the 2025 result was 1.2%, compared with 2.2% in 2024.
The figure is not disaggregated by individual fuel but it confirms that low-carbon fuels are used and measured.
What This Means for Contractors
The SRL project creates several practical questions for contractors in future infrastructure projects with similar carbon reduction ambitions:
Which low-carbon fuels are accepted under package sustainability plans?
What evidence is required to verify fuel use?
Can HVO contribute to both the overall emissions target and the separate fuel metric?
What sustainability certification and chain-of-custody documentation is required?
Are equipment approvals, fuel specifications and warranty requirements confirmed?
How will fuel use be tracked through delivery records, tank records and plant registers?
For generators, heavy earthmoving equipment, haulage vehicles and temporary site plant, HVO can provide an emissions-reduction pathway where full electrification is not yet practical.
Why this matters beyond SRL
The SRL shows how major infrastructure projects may move beyond broad sustainability commitments and require measurable performance across individual packages.
The combination of a construction-emissions target, a separate low-carbon-fuel metric and package-level contractor reporting is likely to influence future transport, tunnelling, road and energy projects.
For contractors, the question is no longer simply whether equipment can operate on HVO. It is whether the fuel substitution can be documented, verified and recognised within the project’s sustainability reporting.
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