BRIEF – 3 July 2009 – The Council of Australian Governments yesterday released a communique, “Dealing with Climate Change Through Energy Efficiency”. Reproduced here is the section dealing with energy efficiency for the built environment. For the first time, Australian Governments have agreed a comprehensive 10-year strategy to accelerate energy efficiency improvements for householders and businesses across all sectors of the economy.  Accelerating energy efficiency is a key plank in the strategy to combat climate change, reduce the cost of emissions abatement and improve the productivity of the economy.  The strategy will complement the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme by addressing the barriers that are preventing the efficient uptake of energy efficient opportunities, such as split incentives and information failures. COAG today signed the National Partnership Agreement on Energy Efficiency, which will deliver a nationally-consistent and cooperative approach to energy... 
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“The Design Hub will be a centre for collaboration – a place to develop world-class concepts and initiatives that will raise this city’s and Victoria’s international profile”- RMIT Vice Chancellor, Professor Margaret Gardner by Lynne Blundell July 5, 2009: With the appointment today of building contractor Watpac Construction (Vic), work will soon begin on RMIT’s new Design Hub, a building that will house some of Australia’s future design brains and is itself a design showpiece featuring leading edge sustainable technology. RMIT Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Margaret Gardner AO, said she welcomed the appointment of Watpac Construction to the project: “Watpac are renowned for their expertise in education projects, but also their commitment to environmentally sustainable design.” Professor Gardner said that the Design Hub would be a “centre for collaboration – a place to develop world-class concepts and initiatives that will... 
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By Tina Perinotto Melbourne’s Wholesale produce market has slashed $10,000 from its monthly water bill after commissioning a water metering system through Sydney based company, Watersave Australia. Managing director of Watersave, Paul Marsh, said his company’s Smart Meter resulted in a water use dropping from 93 million litres a day to less than 17 million a day – a reduction of 80 per cent. In addition, new research commissioned by his company has found significant carbon savings related to the move. According to Melbourne Market Authority Chief executive officer, Peter McLennan, water charges fell from $13,000 a month to less than $3000 a month, even after a 20 per cent rise in water levies. Melbourne Market Authority installed the internet based Watersave Smart Meter in May 2008, enabling the organisation to monitor on-site water usage data in real-time via a log-on and password, with updates from the system every 15 minutes. The system almost immediately revealed highly... 
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BRIEF – 2 JULY 2009 – Refurbish your existing building to green standards and you could add 10 per cent to your investment, a new report published by the Property Council of Australia and conducted by Arup and Davis Langdon, has claimed. The study, Existing Buildings Survival Strategies: Making it Happen, involved three different types of buildings, a 20,000 square metres CBD tower a 15,000 sq m city fringe high rise and a 2800 sq m suburban office, all built in the 1980s a media release on the project said. Chief executive officer of the PCA, Peter Verwer, said there was growing demand for green offices by tenants. “To attract and maintain long-term tenants, building owners need to provide office space with excellent environmental credentials.” Yet there was currently 60 million sq m of existing office space that was more than 25 years old, Mr Verwer said. The report provides information upgrade a building’s green factor. For more information click here  
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2 July 2009 – The Green Building Council of Australia said its new Green Star – Multi Unit Residential v1 rating tool, released today, could be used as a way to allocate bonus floor areas, fast assessment of development applications and cash incentives for green developments. Chief executive officer of the GBCA, Romilly Madew, said that her council did not advocate Green Star as a mandatory regulation tool, but it did “encourage Green Star as a support mechanism for incentives.” “The GBCA is currently in discussion with a number of authorities on how to apply the Green Star – Multi Unit Residential v1 rating tool to the allocation of bonus floor areas, fast assessment of development applications and cash incentives for green developments,” Ms Madew said. “We are confident that the Green Star – Multi Unit Residential v1 tool will deliver a single third party certification that the residential market can understand and trust, and that property developers can use to demonstrate... 
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by Lynne Blundell In a perfect world Sam Capelli, environment manager with City of Ryde Council, would like to see local government sustainability requirements for developments pushed much higher. But in this far from perfect world, where developers and residents baulk at paying extra for green, he knows he has to settle for compromise. After all, he points out to The Fifth Estate, sustainability is about people as well as the environment. The City of Ryde is part of a growing body of NSW local councils pushing for higher standards of sustainable development through its updated Local Environment Plan (LEP), incorporating a raft of energy and water conservation measures as well as incentives for developers to be more sustainable. The Ryde precinct contains the Macquarie Park region, targeted in the NSW government’s Sydney Metropolitan Strategy for significant growth. Under the planning strategy the “global economic corridor” stretching from Macquarie Park to the CBD and through to... 
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by Lynne Blundell The stick and carrot approach is proving a good one for pushing sustainability globally. As governments around the globe respond to the climate change challenge with stricter building codes, together with incentives, green buildings and technologies are booming. In the US, the introduction of California’s Green Buildings Standards Code is expected to result in a significant growth in green technologies and homes. A 2007 report by McGraw Hill Construction, Green Homeowner SmartMarket predicted the market for green homes to increase 10-fold over the next five years and to account for 10 per cent of all new building starts by 2010. According to the report, green products are already used in 40 per cent of all US home renovations. The new Californian code calls for a 20 per cent improvement in water use efficiency, 50 per cent increase in water conservation, and 15 per cent reduction in energy consumption in all new construction. The code is voluntary until 2010, when... 
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by Michael Mobbs… 18 June – Are you marching in step with the wrong crowd?  If you’re besotted with Kyoto dreaming, probably. What do you make of these facts? At Observatory Hill, Sydney, a weather station beside Sydney’s Harbour Bridge, the ambient or background temperature rose 1.5 degrees in the last 100 years. Of that 0.5 degrees of that was due to climate change, and 1 degree was due to black roads, dark roofs and lack of tree cover In the years 1965 to 2001 – 36 years – the number of very hot (above 35c) days per year in Sydney’s coastal areas rose by 22 per cent, but in western Sydney (where most new housing is being built) they rose by 250 per cent – from 5 to 15 days The design of roads, roofs, and trees in the landscape is increasing the temperatures of cities, subdivisions, houses, offices faster than climate change The higher the city temperatures the more aircon used and the more coal-fired power burnt None of Australia’s red tape... 
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By Tina Perinotto 9 June – The weekend newspaper advertisement promised savings of $13,000 on a new solar power system. “Millions of years of sunlight. Less than a month left to capture it for FREE,” it said. But that was Sunday. By Tuesday the federal government’s solar panel rebates that had created a boom in solar power systems had been suddenly scrapped and suppliers were in chaos. Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the scheme had cost around four times the budgeted amount and would be replaced by a “Solar Credits” system that would be more widely available, but which industry sources said would be cost around $5000 less. Managing director of Clear Solar Paul Wilson, whose company had placed the advertisement, was frantic when TFE spoke to him at around 4 pm. “We’ve got staff working till midnight, customers queuing up the staircase,” Mr Wilson said. With just hours to go before the rebate became redundant at midnight, his company had already taken around... 
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We’re used to hearing about the need to reduce the number of cars on the world’s roads if we’re serious about reducing carbon emissions. What we don’t expect is for a petrol company to be pushing that line. But that’s exactly what Portugal’s largest gas and petrol company, Galp Energia, is doing with a new car pooling scheme. Springwise business ideas newsletter reports that Galp Energia has launched a carpooling platform where commuters create a profile to match up with others using the same travel route. Called Galpshare, it allows users to list their musical preferences and interests to help them find people they’d enjoy sharing a ride with. While it might seem counterproductive for a gas company to get cars off the road, most petrochemical behemoths are actively branching out into renewable energy sources and sustainable energy consumption, according to Springwise. Galpshare’s launch was widely promoted to commuters through an ad campaign, and the service is available... 
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Grocon is developing a supportive housing project for Melbourne’s homeless at cost, in a partnership with the State Government and Yarra Community Housing. CEO Daniel Grollo said Grocon would provide a project manager and other experienced staff to deliver the project, which is due to start later this year. “It’s a great model for us to be involved with, as we hope we can bring design, development and construction skills to the table to assist in ensuring the right outcome for homeless people,” he said. “From what we know of supportive housing models overseas, it can provide a way for the long term homeless to break out of that cycle, which starts with having a place they can call their own.” Supportive housing was pioneered in New York in the early 1990s, the first building a refurbished hotel near Times Square. Since then the number of homeless living rough on the streets has dropped dramatically. The project involves building around 120 units over 10 levels, providing support... 
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by Lynne Blundell Mildura on the Murray River in northern Victorian could be the location for two new solar power plants after the Federal Government’ announcement to invest $1.5 billion over six years in solar energy. As part of its clean energy initiative, the government promised a new Solar Flagships program, which will invest in up to four solar electricity generation plants, with Mildura believed to be one of the potential locations. The town has already been named as a site for Australia’s first solar thermal power station of 80MW capacity by Solar Energy Company Pty Ltd also known as Solenco. The Federal Government’s announcement is for an extra 1000 megaWatts of solar generation capacity. Together, the four plants are expected to generate as much power as a large coal-fired power station, making them the largest solar energy project in the world. Prime Minister Rudd, said that the plants’ generating capacity would be “three times the size of the largest solar energy... 
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By Lynne Blundell The Coalition may not be scoring many points for its refusal to budge on the Government’s emissions trading scheme but its push for a voluntary carbon market has met with approval from the green building sector and organisations keen to see greater recognition of voluntary action to reduce emissions. Under the Coalition’s proposed scheme a government-authorised voluntary carbon market would start from 1 January 2010. Based on the Chicago Climate Exchange, the scheme would allow individuals and businesses to bank carbon credits and use them when and if emissions trading starts. Individuals and communities, agriculture, various forms of bio sequestration, additional energy efficiency measures by business, and the commercial building sector would all get immediate recognition for their emissions cuts. GBCA chief executive Romilly Madew said that a Voluntary Carbon Market would allow the commercial building sector to fully participate in reducing its carbon emissions... 
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by Lynne Blundell When Mary-Anne Kyriakou, founder and artistic director of Smart Light Sydney talks about the future of sustainable lighting in cities her voice buzzes with the same sort of energy that emanates from the light sculptures in her show. “This show is about the expression of urban space through light. With urban planning it is important to do a master plan of the lighting but this is not really done very often. There is a great need to understand lighting in the urban space,” Kyriakou told TFE. Kyriakou, a lighting engineer and artist, believes our cities are currently over-lit – something that needs to change if we are serious about cutting emissions and slowing global warming. Smart Light Sydney is celebrating sustainable innovations and the future of low-energy lighting design (see our separate story on the show). The 25 works, which are located along the route from the Sydney Opera House to Observatory Hill in the Rocks, all use low energy technology and many... 
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by Perentie Sydney’s Cumberland Plain is often cited in anti development cases. So why is it so special? Partly it’s the value of its underlying soil type. The geology of the Sydney Basin commenced nearly 300 million years ago as a shallow seabed, followed by river and swamp environments.  These marine sediments formed what we now call Hawkesbury Sandstone and the river and swamp environments resulted in shale soils plus the economically important coal deposits. As a sweeping generalisation the two main soil types of the Sydney Basin are the sandstones and the shales. Of the two, the shales are better suited to agriculture; consequently, following the initial European settlement, they were extensively cleared. The sandstone soils around the original Farm Cove, now part of the CBD, were a contributing factor in the crop failures of early European settlement. When the European settlers arrived the Cumberland Plain Woodland was estimated to cover 30 per cent of the Sydney Basin.... 
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Fifteen households in Mt Gambier watched the power meter rotate backwards, when they installed a solar photo-voltaic system for just over $2000 after government subsidies and renewable energy credits, according to an item posted by the ABC. Read more  http://blogs.abc.net.au/sa/2009/05/solar-neighbour.html  
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by Lynne Blundell… 26 May – Smart Light Sydney kicked off  with Brian Eno’s spectacular light show on the sails of the Sydney Opera House. Eno’s Lighting the Sails is part of Light Walk, a series of light art sculptures, interactive and performance-based art displays from local and international design luminaries and artists which celebrate sustainable low-energy lighting design and innovation. As part of a switch-off campaign in conjunction with the Property Council of Australia, Smart Light Sydney will turn off more power on the grid than it uses. The switch-off lights campaign, incorporating some of the major properties located within the Light Walk precinct, will offset the low levels of energy being used by the Light Walk’s installations to ensure the event creates a minimal environmental impact. Three of the installations on the Light Walk use no new energy at all, while some others use solar and pedal-power. Tree and Bench on Observatory Hill will... 
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by Lynne Blundell… 26 May – Smart Light Sydney kicked off  with Brian Eno’s spectacular light show on the sails of the Sydney Opera House. Eno’s Lighting the Sails is part of Light Walk, a series of light art sculptures, interactive and performance-based art displays from local and international design luminaries and artists which celebrate sustainable low-energy lighting design and innovation. As part of a switch-off campaign in conjunction with the Property Council of Australia, Smart Light Sydney will turn off more power on the grid than it uses. The switch-off lights campaign, incorporating some of the major properties located within the Light Walk precinct, will offset the low levels of energy being used by the Light Walk’s installations to ensure the event creates a minimal environmental impact. Three of the installations on the Light Walk use no new energy at all, while some others use solar and pedal-power. Tree and Bench on Observatory Hill will... 
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By Tina Perinotto… 27 May  – Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, has hailed the Productivity Commission’s view that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is economically irresponsible, as further evidence that the scheme is flawed. Today’s newspapers are debating whether the scheme could trigger an early election because of the refusal of the Opposition and the Coalition to pass legislation for the scheme. But according to Senator Milne, the CPRS is seriously flawed and should be replaced by a better system, in any case. “There are economic, social and environmental opportunity costs when Governments spend billions of dollars propping up old polluters when those resources are desperately needed for transforming the economy into a carbon neutral powerhouse,” Senator Milne said today in a media statement today (27 May). The CPRS would “impose additional costs” on other industries, Senator Milne said, quoting the Productivity Commission. “They... 
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By Tina Perinotto… 27 May  – Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, has hailed the Productivity Commission’s view that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is economically irresponsible, as further evidence that the scheme is flawed. Today’s newspapers are debating whether the scheme could trigger an early election because of the refusal of the Opposition and the Coalition to pass legislation for the scheme. But according to Senator Milne, the CPRS is seriously flawed and should be replaced by a better system, in any case. “There are economic, social and environmental opportunity costs when Governments spend billions of dollars propping up old polluters when those resources are desperately needed for transforming the economy into a carbon neutral powerhouse,” Senator Milne said today in a media statement today (27 May). The CPRS would “impose additional costs” on other industries, Senator Milne said, quoting the Productivity Commission. “They... 
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By Maria Atkinson… Dear Prime Minister, I am writing to alert you to serious flaws in Federal Government data on emissions from buildings and to request urgent action to establish accurate data, to ensure Australia’s carbon pollution reduction responses are soundly based. My specific concern is that inaccurate data from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics (ABARE) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which in turn is based on inaccurate methodology adopted by the Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO), has been used as the basis of calculations which suggest buildings are responsible for 23 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the United Nations and many other international authorities put buildings’ contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions in the order of 40 per cent or higher. The data in question appears to date back to an erroneous assumption adopted in the 2002 report by George Wilkenfeld to the AGO: Australia’s... 
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By Greg Paine… Walk With the Elephant- fourth in a series of articles… Sustainable development is about a whole:  about seeing things systemically and with regard to all the connections – and implications – of what we do. Critically, it also is about exploring the variety of solutions that are usually available to any problem or task and which are invariably embedded within this whole, if only we look beyond our usual habits and answers. But the contemporary Western tradition has, for some time, eschewed the whole in favour of the powerful tool of understanding and invention that is the breaking down and analysis of something by its parts.  And as the issues  – like sustainable development itself  – get larger, the predilection for addressing such large questions and dilemmas via a process of fragmentation into ever smaller, seemingly manageable parts only seems to grow. In turn, specialisations concentrate on (usually) one only of these parts to the neglect of... 
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by Lynne Blundell… With the deadline passed for submissions to the Federal Government on its proposed mandatory disclosure scheme for commercial building energy efficiency, the jury is out on what the final result will be. Many of the submissions have called for fundamental changes to the scheme. The most common objection is that building owners will be answerable for the energy use of tenants. Another key concern is the way the scheme will assess energy use of tenants. Under the proposed scheme tenant and base building energy efficiency ratings are being considered. The NABERS rating system, which is suggested for use in the scheme, looks at base building, tenancy and whole building. Base building ratings provide an indication of the efficiency of all house services such as air conditioning, common lighting, lifts, pumps, core facilities and carparking. NABERS tenancy ratings assess tenant lighting, supplementary airconditioning, communications, computers and other equipment associated... 
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-  with best regards to Paul Keating By Peter Droege… The audience in the near-full auditorium expected turmoil, demonstrations and heckling after calls from the “modernist” camp to boycott the event. The Prince had written to Sheikh Hamad bin Jaber Jasim al-Thani, urging the Quatari Prime Minister and member of its royal family to seek withdrawal of investment support for the controversial Richard Rogers designs for a scheme at Chelsea Barracks, without success. But except for a single, somewhat reluctant call for “end the monarchy now” at the end of the speech (prompting another audience retort of “certainly not”), and some placard-waving in support of Charles’ position on the project at the entrance of 66 Portland Street, no protest surfaced. Prince Charles gave a fine speech at the175th anniversary this month. It came across as differentiated, elegant, poetic and funny. The 45 minute address managed to connect his placelessness critique of 1984 (remember his... 
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-  with best regards to Paul Keating By Peter Droege… The audience in the near-full auditorium expected turmoil, demonstrations and heckling after calls from the “modernist” camp to boycott the event. The Prince had written to Sheikh Hamad bin Jaber Jasim al-Thani, urging the Quatari Prime Minister and member of its royal family to seek withdrawal of investment support for the controversial Richard Rogers designs for a scheme at Chelsea Barracks, without success. But except for a single, somewhat reluctant call for “end the monarchy now” at the end of the speech (prompting another audience retort of “certainly not”), and some placard-waving in support of Charles’ position on the project at the entrance of 66 Portland Street, no protest surfaced. Prince Charles gave a fine speech at the175th anniversary this month. It came across as differentiated, elegant, poetic and funny. The 45 minute address managed to connect his placelessness critique of 1984 (remember his... 
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by Lynne Blundell FAVOURITES - 21 May 2009 – The official start of construction this month (13 May) on a landmark green building in Sydney’s CBD felt like a good omen. With the cranes that dotted the skyline several years ago all but gone and construction sites pretty much an endangered species, the pouring of the first concrete at 1 Bligh St was like an affirmation that there’s still a heartbeat in there somewhere. The building owners, the architects, its future tenants, VIPs and media all gathered at the construction site to watch the first concrete slide into a prepared footing. As the grey sludge slid to the ground a small sea of white hard hats bobbed approval and cameras clicked like manic applause. And applause seemed justified; the building is being heralded as a big step forward in sustainable design, its construction during a global recession a sign of good faith. Designed to achieve a 5 star NABERS energy rating and Australia’s first 6-star Green Star rating for... 
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By Liz Morgan Mopoke left the comfort of her warm, but sparsely lined, nesting hollow high up in a towering she-oak after a letter arrived by pigeon post, inviting her to attend the NSW Sustainable Development Conference in Sydney this month (May 12 and 13). Being a principally solitary soul, this was an intimidating proposition to consider: flying six kilometres into the CBD; finding the Cockle Bay venue and making sure to enter through an open door and not go splat into a plate-glass window; introducing herself to other delegates; minding her manners at lunch (would there be anything live to eat, she wondered) and thinking of something wise to ask the speakers. Her instinct was to tuck her head under her wing and stay in her safe, known world, but after reading what the conference was about, she had to go; no question. The future of her own small universe depended on decisions made by the kinds of people who attended such important functions. Here was an opportunity to hear, at first... 
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By Michael Mobbs… What if the fuss over making rules to stop climate change was a waste of time? What if the rules would not make a difference, simply because they address the wrong pollution? Let’s put to one side the self-aggrandisement we exhibit in this debate – that we humans know how to control Earth’s climate, even though we have never done it before.  (I think the only person who knows how to make it rain is the Wizard of Id whose king directs him to go to the beach without an umbrella when he wants to make rain.) And let’s also ignore the fact that the rules being discussed will not take away the pollution we’ve already put into the atmosphere which, if the proponents of the new rules are to be believed, is what’s causing Earth’s climate to spiral out of control. Those wishing to set strategies or to take practical actions to achieve sustainable use of energy, water and land need data about all the energy and water used. Without accurate data it’s unlikely... 
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By Tina Perinotto… In a sign that the sustainable building industry is coming of age,  developer and energy consultancy Szencorp has revealed a “warts and all” report on its refurbished 6 star Green Star building in South Melbourne. According to Peter Szental, managing director of Szencorp, (a TFE sponsor) the Building Use Study benchmarked the premises in the top 4 per cent for overall building performance in Australia. But although the report found tenants were not happy with the air-conditioning system, they were forgiving because of the building’s “green” credentials. Mr Szental said said that while the building at 40 Albert Road, South Melbourne,  achieved excellent results in a number of areas including design, image, and perceived productivity and health, the study uncovered that 86 per cent of staff were unhappy with the temperature within the building. The results also showed that tenants’ reported perceived productivity was in the top 9 per cent of Australian... 
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Built environment plays Cinderella at the Carbon Ball By Tina Perinotto So the mining lobby wins again. The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, flawed and ineffectual as it may be, set back another year. Make no mistake, the enemy here is the coal lobby. And its cohorts in the fossil fuel industry. Left out of the spotlight for serious action is the built environment, capable of delivering $38 billion a year in savings by 2050 – and the tax payer footing the bill to compensate the big emitters. Oh and the other big loser is the Australian public, the people who voted for Kevin Rudd because he made some great noises about climate change. Rudd might be wise to heed the Greens who say their offices have been flooded with inquiries from people asking how they can register a protest. With a double dissolution making the news items, they might not have long to wait to find out. On the packed-out political agenda in the last week or so was also the Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy... 
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