By Lynne Blundell India is determined to reduce carbon emissions and to supply renewable power to its enormous population. But with the massive hydro power generation dam projects under way in the sensitive Himalayan foothills, the cost is high. Lynne Blundell recently travelled to the region and here presents a ...Read More > >

- By Romilly Madew, chief executive, Green Building Council of Australia - 9 February 2010 - The city synonymous with the skyscraper has turned its attentions to the challenges of sustainable building. The New York City skyline is being transformed by green thinking, with the celebrated Art Deco design of the Chrysler ...Read More > >

By adjunct Prof Alan Pears AM, RMIT University and Sustainable Solutions Pty Ltd Introduction The 2009 Copenhagen COP/MOP (Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change/Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol) was the culmination of an enormous amount of work and hype. It was framed as ...Read More > >

From the New York Times -1 February 2010 - According to The New York Times China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year. China has also leapfrogged ...Read More > >

27 January 2010 - The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors took part in CONSTRU India in Mumbai in December 2009 with a presentation on "Challenges and Opportunities in Green Buildings in India". Following are highlight from that presentation. Sachin Sandhir, Managing Director and Country Head of RICS India stressed ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto Leading Australian climate scientist Andy Pitman has slammed the misuse of an error in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and the so-called “email scandal” to discredit the science on climate change, and the IPCC report in particular. The IPCC error, revealed last week by New ...Read More > >

27 January 2010 - Vanuatu is one of many Pacific island-nations that are extremely vulnerable to predicted sea-level rises due to climate change. It is a very poor nation, by international standards, and one of its biggest challenges is to raise living standards through sustainable economic and social ...Read More > >

The forestry industry and union have been stirring up controversy on the way Green Star ratings account for timber sustainability certifications. Now Lynne Blundell looks at the underlying sustainability of timber and how it stacks up against other materials.The debate over which construction material is the most sustainable – timber, ...Read More > >

From the Guardian - 30 December 2009 - Mark Lynas was an eye witness at Copenhagen when China flexed it's muscle, insulted US President Barack Obama and single-handedly stopped a world agreement on climate change. Here's what he wrote on 22 December. Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. ...Read More > >

COP-15 - the conference is over, and so is a lot of good will. Here are some of the reactions: Australian Conservation Foundation, executive director Don Henry: “Strong national laws to cut greenhouse pollution and grow clean energy jobs are more important than ever after the Copenhagen climate talks ended in ...Read More > >

From CNN - 17 December 2009- Could China be the world's green champion? It seems unlikely. The vast nation is typically portrayed as a dire threat to the planet, with a booming population and a commitment to that dirtiest of fuels -- coal. But all that might be about to change. In ...Read More > >

17th December 2009 - A new report by UNEP's Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE) was tabled at the same meeting. "Buildings and Climate Change: summary for Decision Makers" highlights opportunities for drastic emission reductions in the building sector and shows how these opportunities can be harnessed. "No government - ...Read More > >

From Senator Christine Milne - 15 December 2009 - As we head into the final frantic days of Copenhagen, all the work has boiled down to draft negotiating texts for the two streams of negotiations - the Kyoto stream and the non-Kyoto stream (known as KP and LCA, or long-term ...Read More > >

COP 15 - 15 December 2009 - Giles Parkinson, writing in Business Spectator today said Climate Change Minister Penny Wong “pretty much told the audience what they wanted to hear, saying that the switch to clean energy might not have been as fast as people wanted, but it would be ...Read More > >

14 December 2009 - Professor Steffan Lehmann, holder of the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Development for the Asia-Pacific addressed the COP-15 summit, calling on the need for an environmentally conscious design focus within architectural teaching to better equip students to establish sustainable design principles. In his address entitled  "Cities and ...Read More > >

By Clive Hamilton 5 November 2009 - [UPDATED 2 November 2009] This paper, presented to a meeting of the Royal Society of the Arts on 21 October, lays out the latest scientific understanding of the task humanity faces to avoid catastrophic climate change. One of the most striking features of ...Read More > >

CASE STUDY: 3 December 2009 - Singapore-based architecture firm WOHA has won multiple awards for its sustainable designs. Following is a profile of Newton Suites which was recently recognised for its sustainability achievements by the Australian Institute of Architects. This 36-storey development is a study in environmental solutions to tropical high-rise ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto Here comes more proof that green buildings make sense - dollars and sense in fact. This time a study by the University of San Diego and CB Richard Ellis Group, found that tenants in green buildings experience increased productivity and fewer sick days, and that green buildings have ...Read More > >

Brief - 23 November 2009 - Minerals Corporation has received its first commercial sales order for its low carbon cement that the company claims reduces carbon emissions by 80 per cent from international building materials company CRH plc. Minerals Corporation claims its technology is “revolutionary” given that cement production is the ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell 19 November 2009 -The inaugural conference on Profitable Sustainability in Property, held in Sydney last week, brought together the pointy end of the property industry – decision makers and those with financial influence from valuers to developers, engineers to bureaucrats –all keen to hear whether or not green ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell 19 November 2009 - So you own a building. What if you could get investment returns of 23 per cent on retrofitting it without having to invest any of your own money? And get an energy star rating at the same time. Sound too good to be true? Well ...Read More > >

SURVEY: 1 December 2009 - Sustainability remains a key agenda item for CRE and for many it’s becoming a personal imperative, according to the third annual CoreNet Global and Jones Lang LaSalle sustainability survey released today. Figures from the latest survey, conducted in September and October, showed that 70 per cent ...Read More > >

BRIEF - 17 November 2009 - The World Green Building Council has re-appointed Tony Arnel Chair at its  recent annual meeting at GreenBuild, Phoenix in the US. Mr Arnel is also chair of the Australian Green Building Council and the Victorian Building and Plumbing Commissioner.  A common language for carbon footprint ...Read More > >

[UPDATE 14 November 2009] : 5 November 2009 – Green buildings have many benefits, everyone agrees. But now investors have proof that green buildings also bring in bigger dollars – a premium of up to five per cent on comparable non-green buildings in fact – thanks to new research in ...Read More > >

BRIEF - 12 November 2009 - The chief executive of leading UK supermarket Sainsbury's  Justin King says fridges in supermarkets are huge emitters of CO2, both through the energy they consume and the refrigerants used to run them. He also called on the UK Government to tackle the lack of trained ...Read More > >

From The Economist - 30 October 2009 - THOMAS MALTHUS first published his “Essay on the Principle of Population”, in which he forecast that population growth would outstrip the world’s food supply, in 1798. His timing was unfortunate, for something started happening around then which made nonsense of his ideas. ...Read More > >

From Edie.net - 22 October 2009 - A project helping New Orleans recover from Hurricane Katrina, fronted by Hollywood actor Brad Pitt, will build what's being dubbed as the 'largest and greenest community of single-family homes' in the world. The post-Katrina housing initiative Make It Right New Orleans has already built ...Read More > >

BRIEF - 16 October 2009 - The Economist’s latest edition makes a clear case for not relying completely on the market to solve our energy and emissions problem. On 12  October the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, chaired by Lord Turner (who is also a financial regulator), published its first report ...Read More > >

FAVOURITES- From The Atlantic magazine, some excerpts from the article, The Elusive Green Economy, by Joshua Green: “The best way to get an idea of what a green future might look like is to visit Silicon Valley. It’s impossible to convey how otherworldly the place felt this spring. While the rest ...Read More > >

In a move that underlines its growing global activities and alignment with the WSP group of companies, Australian green engineering group Lincolne Scott has re-branded as WSP Lincolne Scott. The re-branding brings significant benefits to both organisations. For Lincolne Scott it means access to the extensive international network of the WSP ...Read More > >