Property developers, chefs, doctors and climate scientists joined up this week to convince homeowners to swap out their gas stoves for electric.
The Global Cooksafe Coalition launched in Sydney to push back against the gas industry’s marketing, with the aim of removing gas from kitchens and promoting universal access to safe, sustainable cooking worldwide.
To mark the launch, leading property companies Lendlease and GPT who between them manage combined funds and assets of over $100 billion, have committed to the most ambitious target currently in place in Australia, including:
– no more gas in kitchens of their new developments by 2030; and
– all-electric retrofits of their existing properties by 2040.
Speaking at the launch, GBCA CEO Davina Rooney said it is heartening to see top chefs like Neil Perry standing alongside large property companies like Lendlease and GPT, saying there is no future in gas cooking.
“Now we need to see others in the industry follow suit with similar commitments because the impact of gas on the climate and on human health can’t be sustained,” Ms Rooney said.
Lendlease Australia’s Head of Sustainability Ann Austin added that Lendlease is serious about reducing carbon emissions.
“While the transition to electric cooking will take time, we’ve already committed our new Victoria Cross Tower in Sydney to being all electric, and we’re looking forward to working alongside our Coalition partners to drive and accelerate industry change”, Austin said.
According to GPT Property Group’s Building Performance Engineer Dale O’Toole, all-electric kitchens save a significant amount of money in construction and operations, including eliminating the need for gas utility connections and indoor gas plumbing systems.
“In a net-zero world, this reduces the risks of stranded assets and increases the longevity of investments for developers”, O’Toole said.
Natural gas use in buildings accounts for 15% of all operational emissions – around 14 million tons of CO2 a year – while toxic pollutants including nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde and benzenes from gas cooktops seep into our kitchens and homes and impact our health.
Research shows that a child living with gas cooking in the home faces a comparable risk of asthma to a child living with household cigarette smoke. Cooking with gas is estimated to be responsible for up to 12% of the childhood asthma burden in Australia.
“With decades of research documenting the risk that these substances pose to our health, we must act now to transition to clean, safe electric cooking”, Rooney said.
Leading chefs such as Neil Perry, Palisa Anderson and Darren Robertson have made the switch to cooking with electricity. They agree that electric induction cooking, is safer, cleaner, cheaper, easy to work with, and much more sustainable.
“Electric is definitely the future of cooking in the home and in commercial kitchens”, Perry said, adding that it’s ‘cleaner, it’s more efficient and it’s definitely more beneficial for the environment’.
“Everything tends to be neater and cleaner without gas,” he said.
The new breed of induction cooktops are now equivalent to, or better than gas options. They turn the pan itself into the heat source – when the pan is lifted off the induction surface, the electricity consumption stops, and the surface is cool to the touch.
According to the Coalition’s report ‘The Future of Cooking is Electric’, which was released at the launch, electric induction cooktops
– use minimal energy;
– are much easier and quicker to heat than gas burners;
– are cleaner;
– emit much less heat in a kitchen, and stay cool to the touch;
– are cheaper to operate (upfront costs are higher but are recovered over time by reduced utility bills); and
– have flat surfaces that can be used as extra workspace for food preparation.
So, if you are planning on building a new home or renovating your kitchen, it might be time to consider going ‘all-electric’.
