'We need more Oslos' City transformed by quiet, low-emission construction

afseer Ali felt no need to raise his voice as the pair of diggers lumbered past him, their treads weighing heavy on the rock and asphalt. Quiet electric machines like these make it easy to work in the city centre, the construction manager said - and keep the neighbours happy. "If they have less noise, we get fewer complaints."

- Ajit Niranjan

The peaceful streets of Oslo are growing even calmer as the city drives noisy machines off municipal building sites. For locals and builders, the drop in decibels is a welcome side-effect of a goal to keep city-managed construction projects free from toxic emissions. The mandate, which is the first of its kind in the world, came into effect from 1 January.

"I don't think we're going to get to 100%, because not all [electric] machines are available on the market," said Ingrid Kiær Salmi, an engineer from Oslo's urban environment agency. "But I think we're going to get pretty close."

Construction is one of the biggest sources of urban air pollution, but even forward-thinking cities such as Oslo have struggled to clean it up. The Norwegian capital has led the way in replacing the petrol and diesel that powers its construction equipment with biofuels, which do little to heat the planet but still foul the local air. It is now moving to battery-powered machines.

The latest data shows Oslo's municipal building sites were 98% free from fossil fuels in 2023; three-quarters were powered by biofuels and less than one-quarter by electricity.

For projects run by the urban environment agency, which has more recent data through to October 2024, two-thirds of machine hours were powered by electricity and one-third by biodiesel.