Australia’s Clean Energy Investor Group calls for urgent EPBC Act implementation to unlock renewables

The report, titled Implementing the EPBC Act: Recommendations to support better, faster decisions for renewable energy projects, was published and prepared with legal adviser Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer.

It sets out eight recommendations across two areas. This includes the effective administration of the amended Act and the finalisation of the outstanding regulatory instruments and sector-specific guidance that will govern the framework’s operation in practice.

CEIG represents domestic and global renewable energy developers and investors with more than 16GW of installed capacity across 76 power stations, a combined portfolio value of around AU$38 billion (US$24.9 billion), and a project pipeline of more than 46GW across Australia.

The Environment Protection Reform Act 2025 was passed by the Commonwealth Parliament on 28 November 2025, making what CEIG describes as the most far-reaching changes to Australia’s national environment law in a generation.

The reforms established a new National Environmental Protection Agency (National EPA), introduced a streamlined 30-business-day assessment pathway for non-fossil-fuel projects, and replaced the existing “no net loss” offsets standard with a “net gain” requirement.

As of 1 July 2026, the Minister has delegated almost all assessment and approval powers under the EPBC Act to office holders within the National EPA.

Despite those changes already being in effect, the report identifies several critical areas where the framework remains incomplete.

National Environmental Standards covering matters of national environmental significance, environmental offsets, community consultation, data and information, and First Nations engagement are still under development, along with the offsets calculator and the definition of what constitutes a “net gain.”

The report notes that full commencement of the reforms must occur by December 2026, leaving limited time for the government and the National EPA to close those gaps.

“Whether that objective is realised will depend on two things occurring in parallel,” the report states, referring to the government’s aim of stronger environmental protection alongside faster, more efficient approvals.

“The first is the effective implementation and administration of the amended EPBC Act. The second is the finalisation of the regulatory framework that supports it.”

The report also draws on a progress scorecard against 10 recommendations from CEIG’s 2024 EPBC Act review. Of those, only one, relating to referral processing timeframes, was assessed as fully implemented.

Several others, including improvements to bilateral assessment arrangements, the finalisation of onshore wind farm guidance, and explicit recognition of renewable energy’s climate contributions in decision-making, recorded no progress.

The bilateral assessment arrangements between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments must be renegotiated under the new higher environmental standards, with a Western Australian memorandum of understanding targeting December 2026 as a completion date.

The report also points to persistent structural issues that the legislative amendments alone have not resolved.

These include inconsistent definitions of habitat across assessments, overly conservative decision-making driven by limited data on a relatively new industry, and approval conditions that CEIG members describe as disproportionate to actual ecological risk.

A Capability Review of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), released in June 2026, found that 56% of staff said the department’s risk appetite was a barrier to performing at their best, a finding the report highlights in support of its call for a more evidence-based approach to assessments.

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