Magical view of the Sydney Opera house at night in Sydney Australia

The Sydney Opera House will be five years ahead of schedule when it recently meets its target to reduce emissions and become carbon neutral. According to the Brisbane Times, the Opera House has been working to increase energy efficiency and decrease waste for the past decade.

In 2014, the incandescent bulbs in the Concert Hall were replaced with custom LED lights to achieve a 75 percent reduction in the venue’s electricity consumption.

In 2017, a new building management control system to monitor energy and water use and manage climate control was launched. The heating and cooling of the building also was optimized with new chiller units connected to a seawater cooling system, resulting in a 9 percent energy reduction.

The Opera House also invested in renewables, tree planting and biodiversity projects to offset its greenhouse emissions.

The building was designed with minimal finishings on building materials, reducing the resources needed and maintenance requirements. The white shell tiles of the sails, for instance, are self-cleaning.

The Sydney Opera House also employs green cleaning practices, using baking soda for concrete cleaning, olive oil for bronze restoration, ozone-treated water for disinfectant, Lux soap flakes are used in some areas and a mixture of clay and Lux soap flakes used in others.

To celebrate meeting the Australian Government’s National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS), the iconic structure’s famous white sails were turned (temporarily) green.

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