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Sydney’s Opera House has gone carbon neutral, five years ahead of schedule. Officials have spent the past decade working towards an increase in energy efficiency and a decrease in waste.

The Opera House achieved this incredible feat through the modernisation of a 50-year old seawater cooling system, the replacement of thousands of incandescent light bulbs to LED lights, and increased support for reforestation projects.

Officials have been working towards increasing the Opera House’s energy efficiency and decreasing the production of waste for the past decade.

A new waste management program has also been introduced. This program has introduced new recycling streams and a system that transfers food waste that previously would have gone to landfill to an organic facility that’ll be turned into energy. This improved The Opera House’s waste recycling rate from 25 per cent to 60 per cent, as SMH reports.

The next step in the Opera House’s Environmental Sustainability Plan is to reduce its energy use by 20 per cent, achieve 85 per cent recycling of operational waste, achieve a 5-star Green Performance Rating and maintain its certified carbon neutral status.

Don Harwin, NSW Minister for the Arts has stated “By slashing energy use and ramping up recycling the Opera House has truly set the stage for others to follow”.

This is stunning news and we can only hope that more of Australia’s architectural giants follow suit.