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News From The Front

21 November 2011 – CB Richard Ellis’s technical services team and Neil Wood, senior facilities manager with Brisbane City Council took out top prizes at the Facility Management Association of Australia Awards for Excellence. CBRE won the Initiative... 
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24 November 2011: Total Environment Centre has won the National Canon Environmental Grant for its “Cool Streets” project in Chippendale Sydney, created in association with Michael Mobbs, a columnist with The Fifth Estate. Read More >... 
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21 November 2011 – THE NSW government may be about to merge Landcom and the Sydney Metropolitan Development Authority. The move may create a body similar to the  successful Victorian development authority, now known as Places Victoria, formerly VicUrban. ... 
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By Lyn Drummond 20 November 2011 – Architect Nicholas Perren whose company has designed a sustainable modular home believes there is a big opportunity for the housing industry to reinvent itself. “Looking at the development of homes over the... 
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29 November 2011 – Not enough high school students with a talent for maths and science are being encouraged to pursue an engineering career according to a survey by Australia Wide Personnel, following a survey by Seek this week (Monday) which showed... 
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Occupy the future 17 November 2011 – At last week’s event to celebrate Westfield coming into the Green Star tent with its five star Pitt Street Sydney project, Robert Jordan, the company’s managing director Australia and New Zealand, made... 
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By Tina Perinotto 17 November 2011 – Does it sound strange that we are still reviewing NABERS? The energy (and other environmental metric) rating system that started out so long ago is currently being re-reviewed, this time by the Australian Institute... 
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By Tina Perinotto 17 November 2011  – Peter Clarke is struggling to see what the problem is. As  chairman of the new look, newly renamed Places Victoria – formerly VicUrban and for a while, the Urban Renewal Authority – Clarke is charged with... 
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16 November 2011 –Former Victorian Deputy Premier and sustainability champion John Thwaites has been appointed as chair of the Australian Building Codes Board. Federal Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr said: “Mr Thwaites’ work on building sustainability... 
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16 November 2011 – “If we can do it, anyone can do it,” said Knight Frank facilities manager for 135 on King, Den Jolly after accepting one of the two key awards announced at Tuesday night’s City Switch NSW awards at Sydney... 
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16 November 2011 – The built environment has scored poorly in an inner Melbourne study of neighbourhood access for disabled people. The Universal Mobility Index, initiated by Visionary Design Development, included the strip shopping area of Kensington... 
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By Lyn Drummond 15 November 2011 – A website where potential developers can easily calculate their infrastructure commitments, bypassing the often complex paper work of local government has won Shoalhaven City Council the top prize at the Planning... 
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NABERS is under review. Again. This time the Australian Institute of Refrigeration Air Conditioning and Heating, has been appointed to undertake the work by the NABERS stakeholders’ advisory committee. Chief executive officer Phil Wilkinson said... 
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15 November 2011 – Commercial real estate agencies can source the energy efficiency of properties and match them with tenant requirements according to the claims of a new cloud–based software with Surga Central, developed by Adept Business Systems... 
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15 November 2011 – A World Economic Forum report on the retrofit market says Australia has the most mature market to date, but that’s out off a very low base. The report points to the massive energy savings potential in inefficient buildings... 
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15 November 2011 – ­From The New York Times: A British seismologist has claimed that two minor earthquakes in north western England “appeared to correlate closely” with the use of hydraulic fracturing –  a method of extracting natural gas... 
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14 November 2011 – General Electric and global banking group UBS has tipped US$200 million into Shai Agassi’s Better Place, the electric car charge company on the verge of gaining a significant foothold in Australia. Read More > >  
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By Tina Perinotto 9 November 2011 – The Metcash NSW Distribution Centre at Eastern Creek being developed by Goodman Group is  aiming for a four star Green Star Industrial Design & Build v1. That ambition puts both tenant and developer way out... 
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Who’s got the Abbott proof fence? Do we need one? 9 November 2011 –On the Abbott proof fence, Greenbuild, and Chinese in Chippo At the CarbonExpo on Wednesday in Melbourne, the day after ushering through the carbon price package, Prime Minister... 
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9 November 2011 – Westfield’s Sydney development in Pitt Street Mall was last night awarded a five star Green Star Retail Centre v1 rating, making it the largest Green Star certified retail project in Australia, and paving the way for a raft of green... 
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10 November 2011 – The City of Sydney last night officially became the first first council in Australia to achieve formal certification as carbon-neutral, under the National Carbon Offset Standard, introduced by the Australian Government last year. Climate... 
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By Lynne Blundell 10 November 2011 – Landcom has opened its second Eco-Living Display Home, Greencycle, one of three homes it is developing to promote sustainable building products and construction methods (see our earlier story on this) Read... 
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8 November 2011 – At last Australia has a carbon price and a Clean Energy Future package that will unlock the riches from saving the Earth, rather than burning it up. The package of carbon price bills passed in the Senate today to applause from the... 
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8 November 2011 – The Federal Government today delivered a mammoth broadside of information on promises and plans for the introduction of the carbon price, to match the size of the reforms now under way. Read More > >  
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8 November 2011 – Today’s passing of the carbon price and the  Clean Energy Future legislation in the senate was an historic win for Austarlia, the Australian Greens said today. Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Christine Milne (pictured... 
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By Lynne Blundell 8 December 2011 ­– DeisgnInc has won this year’s National Award for Sustainable Architecture in the Australian Institute of Architects’ National Architecture Awards for its work on The University of Adelaide Innova21. Innova21,... 
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By Lynne Blundell 8 November 2011 –Sustainable design featured prominently in the Gold Coast Urban Design Awards this year, with two major projects that incorporate sustainable elements, Metricon Stadium and Broadwater Parklands, receiving top awards. The... 
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By Lynne Blundell 20 October 2011 – Quiet achiever Adelaide is up to its ears in strategic integrated design that could change the shape of the built environment nationally. Adelaide may seem an unlikely centre for an urban planning revolution. It... 
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3 November 2011 –Victoria has revamped its urban planning authority with a change of name to Places Victoria and the appointment of acting chief executive Sam Sangster to the role on a permanent basis. The Victorian Government yesterday launched... 
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