By Tina Perinotto The Green Building Council of Australia said the Australian Government’s State of Australian Cities 2010 report would support the property and construction sector’s drive to Sustainability. GBCA chief executive Romilly Madews said the new Green Star –Communities environmental rating tool, which is under development would help address the key ...Read More > >

Landcom's Precinx tool is a winner By Tina Perinotto In the sustainability revolution, things are getting serious. You can tell by  the  number of  ratings tools that are under way. It’s as if the time for talk and promises and green bling are over and the industry wants “real measures” for “real ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto NABERS, the environmental rating system that today measures the performance of about half of Australia’s CBD office space is under review - and the property industry has been promised full consultation. 11 March 2010 - For many people NABERS, the performance rating tool managed by the NSW Government, is ...Read More > >

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  Chris Begert - 11 March 2010 - Rising concern over climate change continues to place increasing demands on the design and efficiency of buildings. High performance buildings that provide optimal internal comfort without adding further pressure on the environment require innovative design solutions from Architects and Engineers. Passive Design, a ...Read More > >

BRIEF - 9 March 2010 - A report from the NSW Department of the Environment, Climate Change and Water which projects Sydney's air quality to 2026 indicates that zone levels in Sydney haven't improved and will worsen over the next 15 years unless the government acts now, Total Environment Centre ...Read More > >

From the Sydney Morning Herald  - 8 March 2010 - Jonathan Chancellor, the SMH's real estate editor today delved into sustainability issues and wrote: About 2025 hectares across Sydney is devoted to professional vegetable gardening. Just 1050 properties grow vegetables, each averaging about two hectares, according to the NSW Department of ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell After weeks of controversy over its green schemes, The Federal Government recently announced changes to the Renewable Energy Target, the most positive sign yet that it might be serious about promoting investment in the renewable energy sector. But then last week the NSW government announced expansion of two coal-fired ...Read More > >

Chapter 3: Monarchists and Republicans - mown weeds versus mounds and swales By Philip Pollard FAVOURITES - 21 January 2010 - Philip Pollard’s Phd thesis, Campus as Place, on the transformation of the University of Newcastle into one of the world’s leading sustainability exemplars, is a rare insight into the enormous ...Read More > >

by Lynne Blundell 25 February 2010 - Christoph Ingenhoven, principal of German architectural firm Ingenhoven Architects, had the audience at Green Cities 2010 spellbound during an impressive presentation of his firm’s cutting edge sustainable architecture. He and his team have designed buildings for cities around the world, collectively winning 30 first ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell FAVOURITES - 2 OCTOBER 2009 - A new life cycle assessment tool being developed by a consortium of industry and government bodies is set to raise the sustainability bar for building materials and to push manufacturers to be more competitive and innovative. It should also help cut through the ...Read More > >

25 February 2010: If you are confused about the difference between a Green Star rating for buildings and a NABERS rating, you are not alone. One rates the design of a building - the Green Star - and other rates the performance - NABERS - so the numbers of stars ...Read More > >

21 February 2010 - While architects, engineers and developers are learning the “green” game, so too are Australia’s blue collar construction workers. And at the forefront of change will be plumbers who deliver the majority of energy consumed in buildings. According to the Green Building Council of Australia major re-training is ...Read More > >

Lance Turner is a technical editor for ReNew magazine. His personal choice for insulation in the home is foil. In this article, he explains why. Insulation improves the comfort level inside your home by reducing heat flows into and out of the building. Reducing heat flows stabilises the temperature inside the ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell The smart grid is a “much riskier business model, beyond poles and wires, as it’s now about a customer response. Letting customer response drive initiatives is riskier. We have to break the existing business model and build a new one. And it’s a riskier model because there is ...Read More > >

By Michael Mobbs - 8 February 2010 - The waste and pollution from 26,000 gas and coal drills holes is polluting the rivers in the Murray Darling system. Miners are drilling 26,000 exploratory holes to assess how much coal and gas there is to mine in over 25,000 hectares of farming land ...Read More > >

15 February 2010 - Tracy Wakefield, managing director of Appalachian Log Homes responded to our article on timber, Timber: complex, sustainable and good in bushfires in a recent letter published here. Timber is highly resilient to fire, Dr Wakefield says in this article, which develops the theme in greater depth. With ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto CASE STUDY - 11 February 2010 - CFS Retail Property Trust and the Gandel Group has swept aside the challenges of going green for retail property, winning the first 5 Star Green Star for retail centres in Australia for the massive Chadstone Shopping Centre. The top green rating ...Read More > >

by Lynne Blundell Four consortia put in some high quality bids for the Smart Grid, Smart City pilot project last week. The Federal Government will announce the winning bid in April, with funds to be released in July 2010. The pilot, announced in the May 2009 Federal Budget as part of the ...Read More > >

- 4 February 2010 - It’s hard to go past Matthew Wright’s article in the Sydney Morning Herald this week for a definitive look at the world’s solar race. And guess where Australia is coming, Mr Rudd? Following is an introduction and link: Renewable energy is the fastest growing power ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell FAVOURITES: 5 November 2009 - The Southport Broadwater Parklands project may well be a blueprint for adaptive planning solutions to combat sea level rise and storm surge on our coastlines. It involved some creative methods, including raising ground levels in some places by two metres. With its spectacular Nerang ...Read More > >

FAVOURITES - 30 July 2010 - Smart Design Studio took out two awards at the NSW Architecture Awards 2009, with two separate entries. One was a project for the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) by Smart Design Studio won the Milo Dunphy Award for Sustainable Architecture. Interestingly the client chose not ...Read More > >

BRIEF - 2 February 2010 - The Melbourne suburb of Frankston is hoping it can soon offer 10,000 of its citizens power points at the local supermarket to re-charge electric cars,  solar-powered neighbourhoods and home appliances controlled via mobile phone could soon be a reality in Frankston - if it ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell There is a new mantra in sustainable engineering and design – “keep it simple and make sure it works in the real world”, says WSP Lincolne Scott and Advanced Environmental director, Matthew Jessup. It is a philosophy, he believes, that will help new developments meet the growing emphasis ...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 > >

1 January 2010 - The Australian Greens have proposed a compromise deal to break the impasse on the carbon pollution reduction scheme. On the table is the proposal originally made by Ross Garnaut, author of the Garnaut Climate Change Review for a two year carbon price fixed at $20 a tonne ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto FAVOURITES - 15 January 2010 - The Green Building Council of Australia is seeking public comment on its revised PVC credit, which paves the way for some PVC products used in flooring, pipes and conduit to contribute to a green star rating. GBCA chief executive, Romilly Madew, said ...Read More > >

- By Brian Moore - FAVOURITES - 27 July 2009 - Sustainability is at the forefront of every significant commercial development. Building owners understand only too well that there is no point building projects for the future using yesterday’s technology and a sustainable building represents the future more than ...Read More > >

By Adrian McGregor, McGregor Coxall - All the evidence points inexorably to the unsustainability of contemporary cities, especially in a fossil-fuel constrained future, coupled with predicted - and unpredictable - impacts of climate change. Our urban future may lie with a new kind of city - the biocity. Landscape architect and ...Read More > >