By Tina Perinotto 28 June 2010 - Sustainability consultant Shauna Coffey (formerly of Mirvac) and Investa’s Craig Roussac were among guests who turned out for the launch of the Energy Efficiency Council’s new policy Platform for 2010 at 260 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, one of Investa’s buildings which it retrofitted to a ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc 25 June 2010 - Sydney City Council recently announced plans to reinvest the $2 million a year spent on the federal government’s GreenPower scheme into renewable energy for the city, including trigeneration plants to supply 70 per cent of the municipality’s energy by 2030. But Beyond Zero Emissions director ...Read More > >

24 June 2010 - The mandatory disclosure bill was on Tuesday night passed by the House of Representatives, after the Federal Government made some concessions to the property industry and winning the full backing of the Property Council, among other industry leaders. The Green Building Council of Australia yesterday issued a ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 22 June 2010 - The Property Council of Australia has today come out strongly in support of the proposed mandatory disclosure legislation and urged the Opposition, The Greens and Independents to pass the bill which is about to face Parliament in the final frantic days of sitting before ...Read More > >

From CBS - 22 June 2010 - The gusher unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew crude oil. There are no reliable estimates of how much oil is pouring into the gulf. But it comes to many millions of gallons since the catastrophic blowout. Eleven men were killed ...Read More > >

by Lynne Blundell 17 June 2010 - The Senate committee conducting the inquiry into the Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Bill last month delivered its final report, recommending that the Bill be passed, with some changes. In doing so it appears to have glossed over opposition to the proposed scheme, claiming it ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 18 June 2010 - The Federal Government has ceded ground in the battle to water down the provisions of the mandatory disclosure scheme for commercial buildings, which is about to face Parliament in the final two weeks of sitting before the long winter break, and possibly a federal ...Read More > >

The Sydney Morning Herald - by John Garnaut - 18 June 2010 - Sledgehammer policies to curb energy use and upgrade China's economic structure pose a new short-term challenge to Australian mining industry profits. Chinese leaders are unveiling campaign-style measures to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, including simply closing companies ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc 18 June 2010 - Investa has released its latest sustainability report,  with findings from seven years of data revealing the energy and greenhouse emissions of the group’s tenants. The sustainability report, Investa’s eighth, is presented in a new online format with interactive graphs that allow the user to view ...Read More > >

By Ché Wall 15 June 2010 - the Australian Prime Minister’s Task Group on Energy Efficiency wades through the 187 submissions it has received, it would do well to consider discussions in Paris last month about how best to measure and achieve energy efficiency improvements in buildings. All the peak global ...Read More > >

7 June 2010 - The Federal Government today announced that Newcastle would lead Australia’s Smart Grid ambitions with the country’s first commercial-scale demonstration project, led by winning bidder for the work, a consortium led by EnergyAustralia. The consortium also includes IBM Australia, AGL, GE Energy, TransGrid, Newcastle City Council and the ...Read More > >

2 June 2010  - While Australia goes lily-livered on an emissions trading scheme, our New Zealand cousins —and the conservative party at that - is invoking a wartime effort to get its scheme across the line. According to Celsias Weekly today Environment Minister Nick Smith  said: "When our Anzac troops went ...Read More > >

By Ann Burns, head of utilities, Accenture Australia FAVOURITES  - 1 June 2010 - Smart meters are going in and smart grids are receiving government funding. But will consumers change their habits in the battle for energy efficiency? The latest evidence indicates that Australians need some convincing. The new energy era will ...Read More > >

19 May 2010 - A confidential submission which has appeared on the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency website states that International Power says it will not accept any policy that requires the National Electricity Market to support energy efficiency because it has “the potential to destroy the ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell 6 May 2010- Let’s face it energy efficiency is not sexy. Like electricity it’s a bit hard to get a handle on and it’s a pretty dull conversation starter. It’s even worse for politicians facing the great moral challenge of our times. Wizz bang technology on the other ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell 530 Collins Street Melbourne 6 May 2010 - When GPT’s building at 530 Collins Street was coming up to 20 years old, the property group decided it was time for an upgrade with energy performance a key focus. Originally completed in 1989, it is a landmark building with approximately 68,335 ...Read More > >

28 April 2010 - The Green Building Council of Australia today weighed into the chorus of disappointment at the Federal Government’s dropping of the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, saying the pressure was now on complementary measures to achieve progress in greenhouse gas reductions. The GBCA was “extremely disappointed” by the ...Read More > >

28 April 2010 - From Business Spectator - It may take until the next election to judge if the decision to abandon attempts to forge a sensible climate policy and a carbon price for another three years is sound politics. But two things should already be abundantly clear: it’s not good ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc 27 April 2010 - Green groups have reacted angrily to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s scrapping of the emissions trading scheme, at last until after 2012. Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Christine Milne said the Prime Minister had “thrown away any claims to global leadership on climate action.” In a statement ...Read More > >

The retail sector consumes 50 per cent of the commercial property sector's share of energy. Now shopping centres, at least, will try to do something about that environmental profile. by Lynne Blundell FAVOURITES: 24 October 2010 - When it comes to energy efficiency the retail   sector is the very large elephant in ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell 14 April 2010 - There could be light at the end of the tunnel for cogeneration projects seeking co-operation from energy agencies. In a victory for precinct-style power generation, a proposed shared cogeneration project between The University of Queensland and the Royal Brisbane Hospital has received support from ...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 Lynne Blundell 31 March 2010 - public discussion paper on the federal government’s proposed framework for setting energy efficiency standards for buildings has been released for public consultation. The discussion paper presents the National Building Energy Standard-Setting, Assessment and Rating Framework, which is part of the National Strategy on Energy ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc 31 March 2010 - Business and environment group leaders met at the “Doing Nothing Is Not An Option” event in Sydney yesterday to review the collapse of the carbon pollution reduction scheme and discuss how to manage risk in the face of climate change and a policy void. The ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc 31 March 2010 - The Victorian Government today announced a $500,000 boost to Melbourne City Council’s plans to retrofit more than two thirds of Melbourne’s commercial buildings as part of its “1200 Buildings” sustainability initiative. The voluntary program already has 16 corporations (see list below) among its signatories with ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc - 31 March 2010 – The formation of the Prime Minister’s Task Group on Energy Efficiency has been welcomed by environment and green groups for its promises of economic benefits and emissions reduction. The Task Group, which will make recommendations for generating a step-change improvement in Australia’s energy efficiency, ...Read More > >

BRIEF – 30 March 2010 - Plans for the construction of one of the worlds largest solar plants in Victoria are back on track after technology innovation company Silex Systems took ownership of the solar power plant technologies of Solar Systems. Silex Systems has acquired a solar pilot plant at ...Read More > >

BRIEF – 30 March 2010 - The House of Representatives Primary Industries and Resources Committee has released a report addressing the challenges facing Australian farmers in adapting to the impacts of climate variability and climate change. Entitled “Farming the Future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to ...Read More > >

By Giles Parkinson From The Spectator: 24 March 2010- The greatest worry for members of the Australian clean-tech community is not that they have already missed two or three opportunities to take the lead in low carbon technologies, it’s that that they might miss the next two or three as well. That ...Read More > >

From The Economist - 20 March 2010 - In the 1990s cap-and-trade—the idea of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by auctioning off a set number of pollution permits, which could then be traded in a market—was the darling of the green policy circuit. A similar approach to sulphur dioxide emissions, introduced ...Read More > >