By Tina Perinotto
2 September 2010 - Daniel Grollo is only a few minutes late for our interview. But then that’s to be expected. These days he sandwiches his time between his new home base in New York with his wife Kat and two children, and running Grocon, the huge private development business that has built and developed some of Australia’s biggest towers.
Not to mention roles on the boards of the Green Building Council of Australia and Bluescope Steel and as president of the Property Council of Australia.
On the day of our interview he’s been delayed at Macquarie Bank headquarters in Sydney. No hints can be prised from him on what the deal is about. It may involve one or two “secondary projects”, he says he is contemplating in the United States, while he and Kat continue to live in New York (he’s not sure for how long) or the major projects along Australia’s east coast, or even the consulting work Grocon is doing in the Middle East.
What Grollo is happy to point to though, is that there is imminent “big news” on sustainability in the wings….
By Wendy Truong and Edie Mather
3 September 2010 - The success of the Federal Government’s Solar Bonus Scheme has seen over 30,000 households generating their own solar energy. Following is an outline of scheme and how it can benefit individual homes.
The Australian Government is finally back on the solar bandwagon with its national Solar Bonus Scheme, intended to boost the number of grid-connected photovoltaic system installations across the nation.
This article intends to provide information on the design process of a general grid-connected PV solar system and important issues to consider before deciding on a system. With an understanding of the operation and limitations of your PV solar system, you and your system designer can create a truly effective, or even profitable, solar energy installation.
Accredited solar system design
The versatility of a PV solar system lies in the fact that it can be tailored to your situation and needs. Some people like their house to be self-sufficient or to reduce their carbon footprint while others like to take advantage of the feed-in tariff as an additional income. Regardless of the reasons for installing a PV system, its important to work closely with the…
2 September 2010 - Human city-makers know less than ants when it comes to cooling and warming our cities.
When it knows (we don’t know how) the coming summer will be hot the meat ant gathers white and pale pebbles and carries them to cover the ground above its nest. For cold winter time the ant replaces the pebbles with dark coloured pebbles.
In this way the little critters cool or warm their nest as the seasons vary the ground temperatures.
I’ve just seen ants carrying pebbles and doing this on a recent ABC video and explained by Auntie Fran of the D’harawal people, south of Sydney; it swept me away. (1)
And what do we humans do to cool down where we live, our cities?
Most of what we do increases the heat of our cities.
Red tape makers whack the private sector over the head with planning rules but ignore their own roads, schools, hospitals, freeways, train lines, harbour foreshores, esplanades and cover them in black tar, dark roofs and no trees. Their own development drives up city temperatures by 6 to 10 degrees above…
by Lynne Blundell
Climate change has emerged as a key issue in determining which of Australia’s two major political parties forms government with the Independents. Renewable energy is high on the agenda, with at least two of the Independents and the Greens’ Adam Brandt pushing for increased investment in renewable energy.
Here we provide a detailed look at the highly regarded Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, recently released, which outlines a path to how Australia can move to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020.
The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, published recently by Beyond Zero Emissions, has received widespread support from eminent scientists, academics, industry leaders and energy sector businesses.
At the heart of the Plan is a strategy to move Australia away from a dependence on fossil fuels to 100 per cent renewable energy. The report debunks the argument so often put forward by critics that renewable energy can never supply baseload energy because it is unreliable and too expensive.
Mike Sandiford, Professor of Geology and director of the Melbourne Energy Institute at the University of Melbourne, which sponsored the report, describes the Zero Carbon Plan as ” an extraordinary and…
The Five Stages of Grief
By Michael Baker
This series of articles by retail analyst Michael Baker explores a retail format that is far more sustainable than its energy guzzling cousins at the mall.
In her famous 1969 book, entitled “On Death and Dying”, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross identified the five stages of grief through which people typically go in dealing with personal tragedy: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Retail developers also have their five stages of grief, which relate not to tragedy but to the threat of new competition. These five stages all have to be negotiated by traditional mall developers in the fight against town centre projects.
In America, developers have long worked their way through the five.
Stage 1, as in the Kübler-Ross model, is “denial.” In this instance, it’s denial that the new format is going to be rolled out at all because “consumers will not accept it.”
Stage 2 is “obstruction.” Since it now does look like it will happen after all, attempt to thwart and frustrate the innovators by using the planning and legal systems, for example by attempting to make…
