By Lynne Blundell While politicians continue to huff and puff about whether or not we need a carbon emissions trading scheme businesses are not waiting around to see what happens. Many are busily taking steps to more effectively manage both their energy use and their carbon footprint in anticipation of new era of higher energy prices. David Solsky, managing director of carbon audit company, CarbonSystems Australia, told The Fifth Estate there has been a marked growth in the number of companies undertaking carbon audits. In the last six months, he says, the company has notched up nearly 30 new clients, pushing it into the top position in its field with around 50 per cent of the market,  involving 5000 physical sites to be audited, and requiring it to double its staff numbers. New clients include the Catholic Church, Macquarie University, Domino’s Pizza, Metcash, Colliers and one of the big four accounting firms. The surge in business, Solksy says, is partly driven by the National... 
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by Lynne Blundell The federal government this week announced the next step in its plan to overhaul Australia’s energy grid, which it says will reduce home energy bills, reduce carbon pollution and help tackle climate change. But, while green groups have welcomed the government’s national energy efficiency initiatives, they are pushing for a greater focus on household energy efficiency through retrofitting. According to the government, the $100 million Smart Grid, Smart City initiative will see government and energy and communications sectors working in partnership to rollout Australia’s first commercial-scale smart grid. Smart grids help energy suppliers to better manage peak loads, reduce the risk of black-outs during peak-use periods, improve the reliability of electricity supply, and more effectively incorporate renewable and distributed energies such as wind, solar and cogeneration. The government hopes smart meters, pricing and tariff programs, intelligent appliances and... 
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Brief: September 28, 2009 – Representatives from 190 nations meeting to discuss climate change in Bangkok this week have some new food for thought, with the latest report on climate change from the UK predicting much faster temperature rises than previously forecast. The Guardian newspaper reports that a study, prepared for the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change by scientists at the British Met Office, or meteorological service, warns that without strong action on climate change we could see a catastrophic 4 degree rise in temperature by 2060. According to scientists who prepared the report, a 4 degree rise in temperature could threaten the water supply of over half the world’s population, destroy half the world’s animal and plant species and flood coastlines. The temperature rise would be even higher in some areas – up to 10 degrees in the Arctic and western and southern Africa, the report says. The study updates the findings of the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental... 
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A sustainable and colourful redesign of an Adelaide building has helped to both reposition the building and rebrand the city’s Light Square precinct, according to the building’s designers. Designed by Adelaide architects Hames Sharley, the refurbished building at 70 Light Square is the first in Adelaide to receive a 4 star Greenstar rating. Australian headquarters of engineering firm URS, it features bright colours and an open, louvred façade. The building’s retrofit included replacement of floors, ceilings and operating systems and incorporates a VAV (variable air volume) air conditioning system that generates natural air flows through the building. Glass ceilings and solar panels encourage usage of natural daylight. A UV film was applied as a secondary louvered façade system onto the existing glazing to minimise heat that filters in from the western front of the building in summer and to retain it during the winter. Airconditioning and of?ce layouts were aligned with natural... 
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By Lynne Blundell Christine Milne has no time for prevarication and resistance to change. And she takes exception to what she sees as the federal government’s abundance of both. She is not alone. Those who voted for the Rudd government in 2007 had great hopes for its green promises. Two years down the track those promises are looking decidedly grey and tattered around the edges. Senator Milne certainly thinks so and she is pushing for urgent action, as she told The Fifth Estate in an interview this week. As Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens, Christine Milne is one of Australia’s strongest advocates for decisive political action on climate change. Her approach is pragmatic and her message is clear – act decisively now through public policy or pay the price in the very near future. Just look at the built environment, a sector that generates 17.7 per cent of all the country’s emissions, says Milne. The federal government has missed a huge opportunity to focus... 
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As the era of carbon trading draws near, a new guide has been developed to help companies manage the financial and reporting impacts of carbon emissions. The guide, Managing Financial Impacts and Reporting of Carbon Emissions – A Guide for CFOs, has been launched by KPMG and the Group of 100, an organisation representing senior finance executives of some of Australia’s largest companies. Tony Reeves, National President of the Group of 100, said the guide is a starting point for chief financial officers (CFOs) and their finance teams to assist in the management of the financial impacts and reporting under climate change regulations. “As governments introduce new regulations globally in response to climate change, the responsibilities of the CFO will broaden to include new obligations essential to enable accurate measuring and monitoring of their organisation’s emissions. “It’s time for CFOs to get fully up to speed on emissions reporting in order to overview the outputs... 
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CASE STUDY: The Melbourne Convention Centre won not only the Built Environment Award in the 2009 Banksia Awards, announced in July, but it was also the first convention centre in the world to be awarded [the equivalent of] a 6 Star Green Star environmental rating by the Green Building Council of Australia, setting a global benchmark in environmental design. The development is a Victorian Government private public ownership project developed by a Plenary Group Consortium which also included builders Brookfield Multiplex and joint venture architects Woods Bagot and NH Architecture. WSPLincolneScott and its specialist services company Advanced Environmental and Vision Design provided all building services, ESD and architectural lighting. This AUS$500 million project reveals a number of design ideas which make it a leading project in contemporary world architecture and is just one part of a PPP between the Victorian State Government and Plenary Group, which is delivering a $1.4 billion revitalised... 
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By Tina Perinotto Listed companies and major banks, expected to form the basis of a carbon credit market, are on a collision course with property rights unless a clear security of title for carbon credits is developed, Australia’s leading valuers say. The problem is that the majority of carbon credits, or carbon sinks, will be held in forests, and so far there is no way to separate the carbon value of a forest and trade it or lend against it, from the underlying land title. But so far neither the federal government, nor the Opposition has focused on the dilemma,despite many approaches, according to carbon spokesperson for the Australian Property Institute, John Sheehan, Mr Sheehan has been travelling the country presenting the Institute’ s views and trying to drum up interest in the issue. See his paper, presented to this years Australian Property Institute Victorian Division Annual Conference in Melbourne on 4 September in Spinifex. According to Mr Sheehan, what’s clear is that in... 
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By Tina Perinotto Last summer 374 people died in Victoria, almost certainly because of heat stress, more than double those who died in the tragic bushfires of 7 February. This year Melbourne has its hottest day on record with a temperature of 46.4C and maximum temperatures in the state were 12-15 degrees above normal. According to a new report from a coalition of green groups, Towards climate safe homes, the Case for Zero Emissions and Water Saving Homes and Neighbourhoods, housing is at the front line of dealing with major climate  impact. It is also one of the fastest growing emitters of greenhouse gasses. On the flip side the sector has massive potential to turn the tables. These views are contained in a new report, which has been produced by Environment Victoria in partnership with The Alternative Technology Association, Australian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth Australia and Moreland Energy Foundation, and authored by former ACF campaigner, Kate Noble, now principal,... 
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BRIEF – 23 September 2009 – At last curious householders can go and see what a real live green house looks like and talk to the architect, thanks to the City of Sydney’s sustainable house project which will be open to the public 15-18 October at Taylor Square in inner city Darlinghurst. The 25 square metre “Live Green House”, which will be part of the Art and About Festival, will include everything from green roofs and balcony gardening to eco linen, cooling paint, self-cleaning concrete pavers, solar power and government rebates. Architect of the house, Martin Urakawa from Archology, will be on hand to take queries. Visitors will be able to learn how to reduce the environmental footprint of their home, with tips on how to save money on water and energy bills, create balcony gardens and green spaces, and how to find out about government rebates for rainwater tanks, solar hot water and electricity, and insulation. Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the Live Green House said... 
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BRIEF: From New Matilda- 11 September 2009 – Did Australia’s largest solar power project collapse because of government inaction? Details about government funding of low emissions technology projects are thin on the ground This week saw the collapse of Solar Systems Pty Ltd, the company building what was to be Australia’s largest solar power station in Mildura in Victoria. As Solar Systems’ website dolefully announces, “administrators are undertaking an immediate assessment of the operations and financial position of the companies with a view to continuing the operations on a reduced scale in order to restructure and sell the business as a going concern.” Read More>>>  
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by Lynne Blundell Renewable energy is for many the great hope for fixing climate change. They imagine a day when the hills are dotted with wind towers, solar panels adorn every building and are spread across vast tracts of desert. The energy of ocean waves will be converted into electricity and we’ll heat and power our homes using geothermal technology. Heavy polluting coal fired power stations will be a thing of the distant past (or any that are still there will be burying their carbon) along with petrol fuelled cars. This may come to pass. But, based on the evidence, it’s not going to be any time soon. As ABC TV Four Corner’s reporter Liz Jackson discovered when she began to explore the story of clean coal technology (The Coal Nightmare 7 September), there is a lot of murky business that goes on behind the scenes and carbon capture and storage has so far been a bit of a furphy. Nobody knows how to do it and even the scientists who are at the forefront of developing CCS technology... 
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  By David Wilson – Another 500,000 thousand residents in Western Sydney cannot be accommodated without a radical overhaul of transport policies. Transportation is a very emotive word in Australia, starting with the arrival of the First Fleet and its crew of convicts in 1788 after a long and tedious journey, to 21st century Sydney when many Sydneysiders regard with loathing their daily journeys to work on overcrowded trains and buses, or equally tedious long drives along congested roads. Not only does congestion irk commuters, it contributes to air pollution and climate change. It is high time for the whole experience of “transportation” in Sydney to be transformed to mean fast comfortable journeys that speed residents and workers from one side of the city to the other, connecting all parts of the city. The population of Western Sydney is forecast to rise by 500,000 by 2031, posing particular challenges for long-term, sustainable transport planning policies to link residential... 
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by Tony Rose The National Greenhouse and Energy Act requires certain businesses to report on their energy use, production, and greenhouse gas emissions. Property groups will be affected by many aspects of the legislation — particularly as contractor and joint venture GHG emissions need to be considered as well as the corporation’s own. Here is a brief guide to the NGER Act, how it will affect property groups, and some of the opportunities to be seized. Background Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol in March 2008. Signatories to the protocol have agreed to reduce their GHG emissions, commencing July 2011. The first two years of the scheme (2011 and 2012) are essentially a trial/trade-in period, with the scheme starting full operation in 2013. The targets set are for reductions in GHG emissions of 25 per cent below year 2000 levels by 2020 and 60 per cent below year 2000 levels by 2050. The 25 per cent reduction target is a little flexible, depending on the outcome of the United... 
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The Gauge CASE STUDY – FAVOURITES – 10 August 2009 – Winner of the Sustainable Architecture Award at the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) Victorian Chapter Awards was Lend Lease building, The Gauge. Located in Victoria Harbour in the Docklands precinct, construction of the project commenced in 2005 and was completed in April 2008 and achieved Australia’s first 6 Star Green Star – Office As Built v2 Certified rated building. According to Lend Lease: “The objectives for The Gauge were to demonstrate real and measurable environmental gains over The Bond, at a lower price, in a building that the industry sees as readily accessible in an overall push to make the highest level of sustainability mainstream. “Symbolically, The Gauge responds to the two significant environmental challenges facing Australia, greenhouse gas emissions and water supply.” Following is a case study statement from Lend Lease on The Gauge: Water saving initiatives in The Gauge’s design... 
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By Lynne Blundell The head of the world’s carbon trading association has urged Australian businesses and consumers to focus on the benefits of an emissions trading scheme and to make some decisions ahead of the international meeting in Copenhagen. Henry Derwent,  chief executive officer of the International Emissions Trading Association, was in Australia last week to talk with government and business about the impending introduction of the Australian ETS and to offer some tips from the European experience. Formerly the international climate change director for the UK Government and the man responsible for overseeing the introduction of Britain’s ETS scheme in 2005, he had a lot of useful advice to pass on. Mr Derwent spoke to media representatives at a joint conference with KPMG last week about the implications of delaying the ETS scheme in Australia, emphasising the importance of certainty for business. He said the rise in energy prices was inevitable and putting a definite price... 
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by Lynne Blundell Despite widespread criticism, some innovative designs are starting to emerge in the Rudd Government’s schools construction program, with the private and independent schools sector making the most of the funding opportunity to push through concepts that may otherwise have been stymied by red tape. Chris Johnson, former Government Architect and chair of the Design Review Panel for the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program, told The Fifth Estate that there are some very exciting and innovative designs coming before the review panel. “Most public schools are doing fairly standard designs but some of the private schools are using the opportunity to create buildings with some very exciting and innovative aspects,” said Johnson. The tight deadlines for applying for funding meant schools were streamlining their internal design approval processes with some positive outcomes as a result. “At times the normal processes contain so many checks and balances that... 
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  CASE STUDY – 27 August 2009 – Who says a fast-designed, fast built school constructed under the federal government’s Building the Education Revolution program, can’t be sustainable and innovative. At Ultimo in Sydney’s inner west a new primary school library and multi-purpose hall designed by Allen Jack+Cottier will feature a “kit of parts” that means the school can be clipped together and then taken apart if required. It will have “amorphous holes” punched through pre-coloured solid concrete walls to allow in light and it will include a range of additional sustainable features. AJ+C principal Michael Heenan worked with the client, the International Grammar School, in a project that has defied expectations that the BER would result in only expedient designs. Designing the building to be delivered within the strict time and cost constraints of the BER budget was challenging, Mr Heenan said, but the environmentally sustainable principles incorporated in the... 
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by Lynne Blundell Summer is on the way – well it certainly feels that way with Sydney last week experiencing the warmest August temperatures on record – and we haven’t even got to spring yet. And there’s a lot of talk of record high temperatures, low rainfall and more bushfires again this summer. But isn’t this how we always talk as winter comes to a close, our fear of drought and bushfire ever lurking? Well, if we do, these days there’s good reason – in the words of Bob Dylan, “The times they are a-changin’”. The statistics tell the story. The last few years in Australia have been dry, particularly in the southeast. In Melbourne in each of the past three years only about 450 mm of rain fell in the city centre, down from the long-term average of about 650 mm. Last summer’s catastrophic Victorian bushfires were a harsh warning of things to come, say scientists, with climate change causing increased incidence of extreme weather events and an alarming decline in... 
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By Tina Perinotto For chief executive officer of the Australian Institute of Architects, David Parken, the reaction from the audience, the Canberra bureaucrats and the organisers to the Built Environment Meets Parliament conference on 12 August, could not have been more encouraging. “We were very pleased with the level of engagement from everyone and that spurred us on to continue that dialogue and hope to see the same in the lead up to BEMP next year – so we have the start to a conversation,” Parken told The Fifth Estate after the conference. Held jointly by the Association of Consulting Engineers Australia, the, Australian Institute of Architects, the Green Building Council of Australia, the Planning Institute of Australia and the Property Council of Australia, the event featured a long parade of politicians (see program below) dipping in and out of the conference, minders in tow, keen to show they cared about cities. It’s about time. Under the Howard Government, there was... 
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Consultation draft July 2009 Report to Built Environment Meets Parliament (BEMP) Partners by The Allen Consulting Group From Chapter 1 Introduction This project’s aim is to provide a model, principles-based framework about the shape and form that strategic plans for cities and our communities should take. These are provided in a form that would be suitable for adoption by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) or substantially assist consideration of this framework by COAG. The Built Environment Meets Parliament (BEMP) partners have commissioned the project. The BEMP partners include: • Association of Consulting Engineers Australia • Australian Institute of Architects • Green Building Council of Australia • Planning Institute of Australia • Property Council of Australia It is expected that this project will be an input to discussion at the BEMP event to be held in Canberra on 12 August 2009. Planning change and changes to planning Governments, businesses, community groups,... 
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- Germaine Greer has been at it again, prodding conventional thinking. This time she says old houses in the Scotland need to be knocked down and rebuilt sustainably because the building fabric is too poor to be retrofitted. And she makes a case for high rise. Following is her article published in Scotland’s Sunday Herald. Do you have a response? Please send it to editorial@thefifthestate.com.au -  Now that Britain has become a property-owning democracy like Australia, the major part of its wealth is locked up in bricks and mortar, which is mad. Regardless of silly house prices, decaying housing stock is a steadily depreciating asset that will depreciate even faster when new and essential regulations about energy efficiency come into force. At present, three-quarters of the Scottish housing stock falls below the Scottish Quality Housing Standard. Half of it does not satisy the seven out of 10 energy standard. The solution is not to tart it up, but to knock it down. With the best... 
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by James Paton It may not be part of the Rudd Government’s plan, but laws designed to tackle climate change are turning into a highly welcome economic stimulus for lawyers and accountants. While a number of these professional firms are shooing redundancy victims out the back door, inside they are strengthening specialist teams to deal with the impact of what one source said was a regulatory change that would be as big as the introduction of the GST. Everyone agrees the proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has huge implications. “It’s a very significant business opportunity for all firms simply because the legislation is far reaching and because the legislation is complex,” said Grant Anderson, a Melbourne-based partner at the law firm Allens Arthur Robinson. “It will have a transformative effect as Australia moves from a high carbon economy to a low carbon economy.” Firms have published stacks of reports on their Web sites, created a mini boom in seminars and made key... 
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By Tina Perinotto - 20 August 2009 – Green groups have applauded the passage of the renewable energy target legislation in Parliament today, but say compensation to big polluters means consumers will be the brunt of the costs and the polluters will get windfall gains. Greens senator Christine Milne said the Government and Opposition voted against an Australian Greens amendment that “would have prevented polluters from making windfall profits thanks to their exemption from the renewable energy target. “Economic models predict that wholesale electricity prices will fall thanks to the renewable energy target because renewable energy technologies shave off some of the massive price spikes that occur at times of peak demand,” Ms Milne said. “The exemptions in the bill mean that polluters will benefit from the predicted lower wholesale electricity price without having to pay for the installation of the renewable energy that reduced the price.” The Australian Conservation Foundation... 
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By Tina Perinotto - 21 August 2009 – For a “former feminist theologian with a funny accent” Kristina Keneally sure knows how to hold the rapt attention of the property industry’s core players. As NSW planning minister for nearly 12 months, the industry generally acknowledges – as it’s done with every planning minister for the past 10 years – that she’s been “doing OK”. Making reforms,  working on slashing red tape and speeding up approvals. Creating the “country’s best planning system,” as she put it. Just what the property doctor ordered you might think. But for Property Council members and guests crammed into the Hilton Hotel planning breakfast last Thursday morning, the frustration that lies just beneath the surface of the always polite, ever-smiling industry, managed to break through, thanks to panelist Sylvia Hrovartin As a planner with a postcode’s worth of housing development under her belt (as PCA NSW chief executive Ken Morrison put it)... 
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Two winners of the prestigious Australian Award for Urban Design were announced last week (11 August) at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra in a prelude to the Built Environment Meets Parliament conference. They were the Paddington Reservoir Gardens, designed by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects with James Mather Delaney Design and City of Sydney and City of Melbourne and Victorian Department of Transport for Transforming Australian Cities. A Commendation was made to the City of Sydney for Sustainable Sydney 2030 – The Vision Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, announced the winners on behalf of the Prime Minister who is patron of the award, which originated in 1996, through Paul Keating’s  Urban Design Task Force. Hosting the award was Planning Institute of Australia with support from the Australian Institute of Architects, the Urban Design Forum, the Property Council of Australia, the Green Building Council of Australia and Association of Consulting Engineers Australia. “The Paddington... 
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BRIEF – 17 August 2009 – The Sydney Morning Herald’s Paddy Manning lifted the lid on the so-called Clean Energy Council Council in Saturday’s edition of his newspaper with a tale of the dirty energy behind the people who run the council and complete with tales of legal battles with The Fifth Estate’s regular contributor Peter Szental, and a stream of failures to deal with energy efficiency. A former chairman was Richard McIndoe, chief executive of TRUenergy, which owns a brown coal-fired power station in Victoria. Chief executive is Matthew Warren, a former environment writer for The Australian, previously worked for the NSW Minerals Council. Members are AGL, Origin Energy, TRUenergy, International Power (owner of Hazelwood), Delta Generation and Macquarie Generation, reports Manning.  A new board member is  former the Babcock & Brown Power chief executive Paul Simshauser, “an advocate for increased compensation for coal-fired power generators.” Greens... 
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By Philip Pollard Philip Pollard’s Phd thesis, Campus as Place, on the transformation of Newcastle University into one of the world’s leading sustainability exemplars, is a rare insight into the enormous complexities – human and technological – that need to managed, nurtured and coaxed into a creative outcome. In the last issue of The Fifth Estate, the thesis together with new observations by Mr Pollard, backed by Glenn Murcutt, one of Australia’s leading architects, formed the basis of an explosive story that claimed recent actions by the university administration had caused vast environmental damage. Following is Chapter 1 of Campus as Place From garbage tip to bio-diverse wetlands Chapter Two Chapter Three The former University of Newcastle was amalgamated with the Hunter Institute of Higher Education and the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music in late 1989, a move strongly encouraged (in essence compelled) by the Federal Minister for Education at the time, John Dawkins.... 
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By Philip Pollard Chapter One: From garbage tip to bio-diverse wetlands 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 complexities – human and technological – that need to managed, nurtured and coaxed into a creative outcome. In the last issue of The Fifth Estate, the thesis together with observations by Mr Pollard, backed by Glenn Murcutt, one of Australia’s leading architects, formed the basis of an explosive story that claimed recent actions by the university administration had caused vast environmental damage. The former University of Newcastle was amalgamated with the Hunter Institute of Higher Education and the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music in late 1989, a move strongly encouraged (in essence compelled) by the Federal Minister for Education at the time, John Dawkins. As I learned firsthand when I joined the newly amalgamated... 
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