The CEFC has invested $50 million with one of Australia's most significant providers of student accommodation, Scape Australia (Scape), by The Living Company (TLCo.), to accelerate electrification across its portfolio of 17,000 beds in purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, while advancing decarbonisation standards in its existing buildings.
The CEFC investment into the Scape Core Fund will remove gas infrastructure from up to 20 residential buildings, enhancing energy performance and future proofing the buildings to support a net-zero future.
Our buildings are homes for thousands of young people, and we have a responsibility to lead by example - cutting emissions, removing fossil fuels, and hardwiring sustainability into the way we design, retrofit and operate. Working with the CEFC enables us to accelerate that transformation and set a new benchmark for the student housing and residential sectors alike.Craig Carracher
Founder & Joint CEO of The Living Company
CEFC Head of Property, Executive Director Michael Di Russo, said: "Electrifying Australia's existing buildings is essential to achieving our net-zero goals. This is the first large-scale residential electrification project focusing on existing buildings that the CEFC has invested in, and the largest residential apartment electrification project that we are aware of. This is an important step in addressing the challenges in electrifying existing buildings and sets a pathway for cutting emissions across the broader residential sector to try and get Australian homes off gas faster.
"This investment will remove gas infrastructure from most of the assets in one of Australia's largest residential rental portfolios, delivering ambitious sustainability outcomes for the growing PBSA sector and, more broadly, providing an example for the residential apartment market. Scape's ambitious sustainability goals are leading the PBSA sector, and lifting the energy performance of its $5.5 billion portfolio, seeking to improve not only existing assets but also newly designed buildings."
The investment will also establish a pilot program to test 'behind-the-meter' load-shifting initiatives as a part of its electrification programs. These will optimise how the buildings use energy and make electrification more cost-effective. By installing advanced metering and control technologies, the buildings will be able to manage their energy demand and response to pricing signals from the grid.
The CEFC investment will also support Scape's ambition to explore the use of PassivHaus principles in new developments, which have been shown to achieve up to 70 percent improvements in overall energy efficiency as compared to other high performing buildings.
Craig Carracher, Founder & Joint CEO of The Living Company, the parent to Scape said: "This investment is a bold step forward in our mission to be the Earth's best living company. At Scape, we don't wait for change - we drive it. Electrifying our national portfolio at scale is not just the right thing to do, it's a strategic commitment to the future our residents deserve, and the planet urgently needs.
"Our buildings are homes for thousands of young people, and we have a responsibility to lead by example - cutting emissions, removing fossil fuels, and hardwiring sustainability into the way we design, retrofit and operate. Working with the CEFC enables us to accelerate that transformation and set a new benchmark for the student housing and residential sectors alike."
Adapting and repurposing existing buildings and electrifying residential accommodation are recognised as significant steps in reducing greenhouse gases and future-proofing residences.1
Australia's residential sector accounts for around 24 per cent of Australia's electricity use and 10 per cent of total carbon emissions2, and scope for decarbonisation in the residential apartment sector is significant, with around 16 per cent of the nation's 11 million homes being apartments3. These buildings typically lag behind commercial properties in sustainability performance.
Up to eighty per cent of the buildings that will exist in 2050 are already built, and current retrofit rates are below what is needed to meet Australia's net zero targets. Globally, the IEA estimates that around 20 percent of existing building floor area will need to be renovated by 2030 to reach lower emissions targets.4
The CEFC has invested $3.5 billion in decarbonising Australia's property sector since its inception, and has backed the residential sector with more than $2 billion in investment to 30 June 2025.
1 GBCA, A practical guide to electrification: For existing buildings , 2022.
2 Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
3 ABS, Housing: Census released 28 June 2022, reference period 2021.
4 IEA, Building Envelopes , 2022.
