By Tina Perinotto

16 May 2012 – The Association of Building Sustainability Assessors says the move to mandatory disclosure of energy efficiency for housing has taken another step backwards with the decision by the new conservative Queensland Government to scrap the Home Sustainability Declaration on energy efficiency.

The certificate, though flawed, was another blow for consumer protection, and part of an anti climate change sentiment sweeping governments and consumers, ABSA acting chief executive officer Rodger Hills said.

Bearing much of the brunt was the housing industry, which had been on a path to higher energy ratings, a move that had now been largely derailed.

Minimum standards
Around Australia the minimum compliance was five stars NatHERS energy ratings, but the move to six stars had stalled, Mr Hills said.

NSW and WA were working towards six-star NatHERS mandatory compliance of minimum energy standards, but Queensland and Tasmania had “backed right away from six star. They say they want to do it, but they’ve put it on the back burner.”

Victoria was recently reported to be considering pulling the plug on six stars but had subsequently clarified a goal of six stars would remain.

n a disclosure regime, Mr Hills said the only jurisdiction now left with mandatory disclosure of energy performance for houses was the ACT, where he said each energy star has been shown to earn vendors an average additional $1000 in sale price.

The Council of Australian Governments had initially agreed to mandate energy efficiency disclosure for homes but several states had now placed this on the backburner – rather than risk a backlash by outright rejection of the measure, Mr Hills said.

However, regardless of climate change scepticism, the cost of running a home might better be seen as a consumer protection issue.

“When people are facing the biggest purchase of their lives, their homes, they deserve to know if that home will cost them a fortune to live in it comfortably,” he said.

In Queensland the initial form of the Home Sustainability Declaration had required a qualified assessor but this declaration had scaled back by the former government to little more than a “tick the box” form completed by home owners, and not subject to checks.

“We agree that the declaration was a flawed piece of policy but the intention behind it of protecting consumers from high energy costs and unacceptable water usage was sound,” Mr Hills said.

“Queenslanders need to be assured that their new government is not throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” Mr Hills said.

“Surely it has to be a good thing that people have more information, not less, about the long term energy and water use of their future home – as they do now with everything from washing machines to cars?

“Mandating a professional home energy assessment at the point of sale by a qualified assessor would be a great start.”

He suggested the cost could be deducted from stamp duty as an incentive.

“I would challenge anyone who suggested that it is better for people to be left in the dark on the likely costs they face,” Mr Hills said.

“We would welcome the opportunity to meet with the Queensland Government to outline how best this could work,” Mr Hills said.

Mr Hills said the rollback on sustainability was a global issue. “The public has started to move away from sustainability and climate change issues because there have been so many scams and misinformation that people are sick of it.

“They’re confused as to what it is to be sustainable so that rather than saying this is an energy efficiency program we talk about consumer protection and six star rating is a home protection measure.”

Bureaucratic barriers
Mr Hills said hampering the take up of greater energy efficiency in houses was also the structure of federal and state governments with the state governments lacking a champion for sustainability.

“It’s disappointing that bureaucracy and politicians are getting in the way of energy efficiency and information,” Mr Hills said.

A key problem was that at the federal level the department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency handled such programs but at the state level there was no similar department so related issues are handled by the departments of planning which are not really invested in the issue.

“Their interest is in building homes so they see it as an impost and as extra work.”

“And the department of planning is not the one that has to pay the bills for the new power stations because houses are not energy efficient.”

Rating tools
Currently there were three rating tools that were used to create a NatHERS house rating which focuses of thermal comfort of a building: FirstRate5, BERS Pro and Accurate.

Mr Hills said he understood that Victoria’s FirstRate5 sustainability house rating software had not found a buyer after a recent tender process, so it was not  likely to attract further development.

ABSA
Membership of ABSA was at about 900, down from nearly 8000 when the green home loans were  in operation, but Mr Hills thought numbers would not fall further.

“We won’t necessarily lose more members [with the close of the Queensland program] because Queensland didn’t have mandatory requirements and it still doesn’t.

ABSA assessors still have significant levels of work because assessors were needed to certify the design of about 150,000 houses each year to ensure they comply with the five star standard before they were built.

Mr Hills took over the role of CEO in October following the departure of former CEO Alison Carmichael.

The online shop is supported by Willoughby City, Hunters Hill, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, North Sydney and Mosman Councils.

The federal government’s solar credits scheme offers a discount of up to $2,511 for the first 1.5 kilowatts of capacity installed for systems connected to the main electricity grid.

According to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, the financial incentive offered through the solar credits scheme will reduce by one third on 1 July 2012, and then by the same amount again by 1 July 2013. – reducing the discount to approximately $1,674 this year and to approximately $837 next year, a statement by Willoughby Council said.

“It makes financial sense for Willoughby residents to act now in order to take advantage of the financial support that still exists for the installation of small-scale renewable energy technology in households and businesses,” Willoughby Mayor, Pat Reilly said.

16 May 2012 – The International Organisation for Standardisation has created a standard it claims will increase productivity while reducing environmental impact.

The standard, ISO 14051:2011, environmental management – material flow cost accounting – general framework, helps organisations to better understand the environmental and financial consequences of their material and energy use practices.

See details

Veena Sahajwalla

16 May 2012 –Scientist and engineer, Professor Veena Sahajwalla, who invented a process of recycling plastics and rubber tyres in steelmaking to reduce greenhouse gas in the industry, has been appointed to The Climate Commission.

Professor Sahajwalla is associate dean (strategic industry relations), faculty of science, and director, of the centre for sustainable materials research and technology, at the University of New South Wales.

She received the 2011 National Nokia Business Innovation Award at the Telstra Business Women’s Awards.

She replaces Dr Susannah Eliott, who has left because of professional commitments with the Australian Science Media Centre.

Mr Combet joined Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, Holden’s executive director of engineering Greg Tyus and ChargePoint chief executive officer James Brown to plug in a Holden Volt electric car.

“Transport accounts for 15 per cent of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. That means more fuel-efficient and environmentally-friendly vehicles will play an important role in moving to a low-pollution future,” Mr Combet said.

You can vote for more than one nominee by the closing date of 31 May.  For details on voting

CBRE ‘s selection was based on achievements such as becoming the first carbon-neutral global real estate outsourcing firm, markedly increasing corporate and employee giving to charitable and community organisations, and improving its ethics and compliance program.

The independent judging panel, chaired by Dr. Bill Hefley of the University of Pittsburgh said; “CBRE’s broad and varied initiatives in corporate social responsibility far extend beyond simple reporting and chest-beating to being demonstrably an integral part of their everyday business.”

By Tina Perinotto

16 May 2012 – If you are confused about the star ratings for buildings, a proposal on the table from the federal government might just sort it all out and bring the sustainability rating schemes into harmony, across types of ratings, between residential and commercial, and ramp the whole lot up to 10 stars for good measure.

These ideas, part of a proposal released on Monday only days after the budget’s axing of the Tax Breaks for Green Buildings program, seem to have taken the industry by surprise. But the ideas are a draft only and members of the working party that helped devise the framework say theu are not as radical as they might at first appear

The proposal, the National Building Energy Standard-Setting, Assessment and Rating Framework, is essentially a roadmap for the rebranded National Building Code, previously the Building Code of Australia.

Key questions raised in the framework include, should the star ratings of tools that might figure in minimum standards for the NBC such as NABERS and NatHers, go to 10 stars, where the measurement of emissions and so on would peter out to a neat zero?

Should NatHERS and NABERS be harmonised into one tool? Should they be related back to Green Star?

Should residential and commercial ratings be blended and expanded to include the energy consumption value of appliances?

Underscoring the framework are tougher minimum energy standards, marked as “x” in the document since they will be a matter for discussion.

Robin Mellon, Green Building Council of Australia executive director, advocacy and international, said that release of the draft on Monday had come as a surprise

“It’s been building up over a couple of years but the timing has taken us slightly by surprise.”

He had not had a chance to go through the document in detail as yet but said the GBCA would be speak to its members and put forward a submission.

However, there were no plans for Green Star to go to 10 stars, Mr Mellon said.

“It’s an industry rating tool, not a regulatory tool.”

The ratings were an “evolving benchmark,” he said and the top rating of six stars reflected world leadership.

“Six star green star is an evolving benchmark that represents a snapshot in time. It’s world leadership and world leadership in 2005 is very different to world leadership in 2012. If we were to abandon that and jump to 10 stars, that essentially rubbishes what’ we’ve said all along.”

WT Sustainability director Steve Hennessy said he had not yet examined the draft in fine detail but would likely put forward a submission to the framework on behalf of the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers.

One issue that concerned him was the suggestion to combine commercial and residential rating tools.

“The use of a common rating scale would simplify the communication of building ratings to the general public and improve understanding of the relative performance of different types of buildings,” the draft framework says.

“NatHERS uses a 10 star scale and NABERS Energy currently uses a six-star scale. The metrics underlying the scales are also different, for example the NatHERS scale uses a fixed end point (that is virtually no extra energy required for space heating and cooling a house) whereas NABERS Energy rates buildings against the performance range of existing buildings.”

But Mr Hennessy said that NABERS and NatHERS tools measured different things. It was like “comparing apples and oranges.”

The general public also did not generally need to understand NABERS since it was usually professional property people who needed to deal with NABERS.

The issue was puzzling, Mr Hennessy said. “We should have the debate and that’s fine.  It’s just that NABERS is accepted in the commercial property market. And the issue of going to 10 stars, I don’t see the point to be honest. But I can see with residential wanting to tighten that up”

Not so radical
PC Thomas, director of Team Catalyst and a member of the working party for the framework told The Fifth Estate that the proposals were not quite as radical as might first appear.

Much of the framework was directed at harmonising the modelling required in the various rating systems, such as for energy.

“What the consulting community and design community has been saying is we need to be using energy modelling for the BCA (now National Building Code) alternative verification method; we need to be using energy modelling for the energy credits for Green Star, and you also need modelling when you do a commitment for NABERS, that in the future the building will meet the NABERS rating, Mr Thomas said.

The problem was that many of the input data had been quite different.

“The client has to pay three separate sets of fees to do these models

so whatever bits can be commonly agreed to and if  we  harmonise those bits of data that feed in, the better.

“It’s not about getting a single rating.”

Some of the other elements that could be harmonised included inputs such as load requirements and what metabolic rate of heat production for people in offices would be used.

“It’s those kinds of things…. We’ve had a series of people looking at different standards and taking what can be considered common to all three [rating tools].”

In a covering letter that accompanied release of the draft framework, Gene McGlynn, framework committee chair and assistant secretary Building Energy Efficiency Branch said comment was particularly sought for:

• whether every rating tool used for regulatory purposes should use a 10-star rating scale
• whether there should be only one rating tool specified for compliance with building standards that require a minimum star rating (that is, whether it would be more beneficial to have only one house energy rating software tool that incorporates the best elements of the three existing software tools)

• whether residential building standards should be harmonised across all jurisdictions
• whether any changes to existing governance arrangements could improve the development and administration of rating tools used under the framework.

The framework is also accompanied by three additional reports:

• An investigation of possible future increases in building standards by Pitt & Sherry
• An examination of the implications of including on-site energy generation in building  standards by Energetics
• A study of no or low cost redesign options to meet current or increased residential building standards by Sustainability House.

For all the documents see:

• http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/submissions/national-building- framework.aspx
• Identifying Cost Savings through Building Redesign for Achieving Residential Building Energy Efficiency Standards (PDF 570KB)
• Identifying Cost Savings: Appendix 3a (PDF 4.8MB)
• Identifying Cost Savings: Appendix 3b (PDF 5.5MB)
• Inclusion of Energy Generation in Building Energy Efficiency Standards (PDF 1.9MB)
• Pathway to 2020 for Increased Stringency in New Building Energy Efficiency Standards: Benefit Cost Analysis (PDF 3MB)

Deadline for comments is Friday, 6 July with consultation forums to be held in each capital city from the 24 May to 13 June 2012.

Following are highlights from the report

Key aims include:

• increasingly stringent minimum building standards set over time for new buildings and renovations
• coverage of all types of residential and commercial buildings, including new and existing buildings
• inclusion of building equipment and services as well as the building envelope in energy efficiency ratings
• improving the accuracy of building performance assessments and ratings through consistent measurement and reporting
• encouraging innovation and flexibility to meet defined performance standards
• increasing compatibility amongst rating tools used for existing and new buildings
• inclusion of broader sustainability issues over time including the level of greenhouse gas emissions generated and water used by buildings
• continuation of star ratings approach to communicating building performance
• facilitating effective monitoring and compliance

Other potential changes flagged include:

• Consistent rating methodology, including appropriate normalisation, to ensure that ratings are meaningful and buildings can be fairly compared around Australia.
• A consistent 10-star rating scale that includes quantitative information about the building’s performance for all building types.
• The climate data used in rating tools regularly updated to take account of predicted climate change around Australia.
• Alignment between pre-construction/design ratings and post- occupancy/operational ratings.
• Flexibility in achieving building standards
• Poor thermal efficiency not to be offset by installing highly efficient appliances or zero emissions energy generation, given the long life of the building envelope.
• Building standards to be applied in particular locations tailored to the local climatic conditions, particularly in locations that are subject to extreme hot or cold weather events

Nothing could be further from the truth. The latest data on global investment in new power production shows the dramatic decline in fossil fuel investment, and an astonishing increase in renewables investment.

In 2004, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the International Energy Agency, investment in renewables was $52 billion, with $250 billion invested in fossil fuels. By 2008 the peak in fossil fuel investment had arrived: it dropped to $140 billion, while renewables overtook it with $155 billion in investment.

By 2010 the amounts were $90 billion in fossil fuels and $211 billion in renewables, and by 2011 only 14 per cent or $40 billion of investment was in fossil fuels while 86 per cent or $260 billion was in renewables.

King coal has in fact been dethroned. It will take a while for the global power system to phase out old power stations and be dominated by renewables, but the transition is proceeding much faster than imagined by most institutions, as well as media like The Australian. The International Energy Agency predicted in 2008 that the world would build 64 gigawatt coal generation in 2010, but when the dust settled on projects built in 2010, only 14 GW of coal was actually built.

See full article

A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.

A confidential memo seen by The Guardian advises using “subversion” to build a national movement of wind farm protesters.

See full article

By Michael Paton

16 May 2012 – Fengshui, literally wind and water, is generally understood in the property sector in Australia to be a Chinese superstition used for the selection of sites for residences and businesses in terms of their auspiciousness.

Whilst on the surface there is some reality to this understanding, what is not generally realised is that it was originally an empirically-based system of siting of villages and towns in relation to fertility to ensure long term sustainability.

Under this traditional system Shanghai was merely a fishing village; its tidal flows were too strong and it was too close to the typhoons that plague that coast to sustain a large population. Viable long term cities, such as Nanjing and Hangzhou, were situated hundreds of kilometers inland on meandering rivers surrounded by land with deep fertile topsoil.

That Shanghai is now a huge metropolis is entirely due to the advent of modern science, technology and communication systems, which help withstand the vagaries of nature.

However, there is a salutary lesson in the environmental history of China that makes me take pause in lauding such examples of the power of technology over nature.

It is not widely known that China hit the wall environmentally in the 18^th century. Even though China is one of the most fertile places in the world, such that it can now sustain over a billion people, and Chinese science and societal systems led the world for over a millennium, famine became so rife there 250 years ago that the only food in whole provinces was the bark of trees and the buttocks of dead bodies.

In his tome on the environmental history of China, Mark Elvin argues that the motive force behind this catastrophe was the logic of short term advantage, epitomised by war.

People were too busy competing against each other for short term gain to consider their surrounds. Vast areas of forests were destroyed with consequent environmental degradation.

The large herds of elephants that roamed northern China disappeared as the environmental sink, on which we survive when humano-centric means fail, was destroyed. Even the development and the upkeep of the Grand Canal with all its excellent hydrological engineering had a devastating environmental effect.

The seeds for this catastrophe, surprisingly, can be seen in fengshui texts as early as the Song dynasty (circa 1100). One writer argues for the return to the ancient practice of taking 13  years of careful observation to decide on the best site and bemoans the practitioners of the day who conduct the “art of swindlers” by dealing merely in good and bad luck to steal money from the people.

The ethic was starting to become that of chance. By the late Ming dynasty (circa 1600) the bestselling book was a fengshui manual, Everything you Need to Know about Siting, which only dealt with good and ill fortune. The ethics of chance held sway as environmental disaster was looming.

Australia was able to be settled by northern hemisphere peoples because of the same modern science that enabled the development of Shanghai, but that science was rooted in a completely different geography than they found in the south.

To their chagrin, in the first year of the First Fleet, all of the plants cultivated in what is now the comparatively fertile Botanical Gardens died.

The general infertility of Australia magnified the repercussions of the logic of short term advantage, and in a comparatively short time span of two hundred years its effects became manifest with salinisation, lack of forest regeneration, and algal blooms in rivers from too much superphosphate in the naturally depleted soils.

But you may well ask what all this historical and philosophical pondering has to do with the sustainability of the property market in Australia.

The point is that the property market as it presently stands is based on the same logic of short term advantage and ethics of chance that had such disastrous consequences for China.

The ethics of chance was at the basis of the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac mortgage fiasco, and the same mindset seems still to be current here in Australia. An example is negative gearing, which enables the propertied to take short term advantage over the unpropertied, leading to a polarisation of society. This mindset has fuelled the increases in the cost of property.

Although coming from different parts of the property spectrum, both a colleague, University of Sydney housing economist Associate Professor Judy Yates, and a cousin, Bill Moss, a former banking and property group director at the Macquarie Bank, have spoken recently of the need for the cost of housing to be no more than 30 per cent of average income to ensure stability of the society.

That this cost for new owners is much more than this in China and around this in Australia at the moment is indicative of an unfolding societal dilemma between the haves and the have nots.

This is ironic in that both China with communism, and Australia with mateship and its attempted negation of class, have sought egalitarian societies over the past hundred years. After all, in Shanghai in the early 1930s, an Armidale, NSW-born-Chinese English language newspaper editor, Vivian Chow, was exhorting Australian-born Chinese to come to China to teach the nascent Chinese republic the egalitarian ANZAC spirit.

The idea that in NSW more than  50 per cent of property is owned by less than 20 per cent of the population is indicative of a growing landed gentry where inheritance may become the basis of land ownership.

This is anathema to any egalitarian spirit and is more akin to the Johnny Appleseed mentality of the US. In Australia, any Johnny Appleseed character would probably have died of thirst in two weeks and all the apple seeds he had planted would have withered and died as well, unless it was a particularly good year.

Unlike the US, it is the general lack of fertility in Australia that is at the basis of our egalitarian culture; we just have had to work together here to survive.

In fact, the lack of what the Chinese would call  “shengqi” or vital energy here was the catalyst for the ritualisation of war between Australian aboriginal groups over the 50,000 years of development of their culture, certainly one of the most “civilised” cultural mores to be found in humanity. The rugged individualism espoused by US culture is much more viable when there is a great deal of water and topsoil.

Pure market theorists would argue that polarisation of society is a good thing because it helps create competition. This may be true for the implausible concept of limitless growth or over the short term, but historically over the long term it has inevitably led to war or enslavement. And war is the epitome of short term advantage; any environmental concerns fly out the window in the struggle to survive.

The long term is relative. It took some three thousand years for a place as fertile as China to see environmental problems; in Australia it took less than 200 years.

I presented a seminar on this topic at an international sustainable development conference in Utrecht a couple of years ago; the general consensus of the audience was that their understanding of long term spanned merely to consideration of grandchildren. They agreed that this wasn’t long enough to ensure sustainable development.

Taking grandchildren into account would probably be the longest thought-span of those in the property market. But much shorter term strategies are the norm.

Gated communities are an example. They may provide individuals with a short term respite from the madding crowds, but they are actually a catalyst for problems over the long term because gating communities only adds to the polarization of society, and the gates become meaningless if the surrounding environment is destroyed. But gated communities are de rigueur in China.

China has become the buzz word for economic growth over the past decade. This growth has been partially based on its development towards scientific and engineering modernity, which has enabled China to feed and house its huge population, and to become a major economic power.

Nevertheless, we should be careful of thinking that modernity allows us to transcend the environment of which we are a part. The effects of the recent tsunami in Japan are a poignant example of this.

China’s economic growth has also been based on its embrace of the international market system. This certainly has its positive aspects, but much of the market involves players trying to win over the short term, and the historical precedents mentioned above should give us pause to reflect on future possibilities.

Fengshui went from being an environmental knowledge system based on observation to a method of site selection for good luck. The ethics of chance became the basis of property selection as China fell apart environmentally.

The lesson we should learn from this is that we can all “play” the property market, but no matter whether the moral stance is Protestant, Buddhist or Hashemite, if we do play the market for short term gain our ethic is that of chance, and our actions could have a long term negative effect for our species, even if our luck is good.

Michael Paton is an honorary associate of the School of Economics at the University of Sydney whose major research interest is the history and philosophy of science in China, especially focusing on dili (the principles of the earth), fengshui (wind & water), and the environmental history of China.

Dr Paton is a co-founder of the Sustainable Management of Organisations Group and former vice president (Asia) of the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science. In 2010, he was invited by the UN to the World Urban Forum on the sustainability of cities. He advocates a southern perspective.

By Lyn Drummond

15 May 2012 – A refrigerant black market could be among the dramatic outcomes of a steep carbon equivalent levy due to be imposed by the federal government after 1 July, according to the Australian Institute of Refrigeration Air Conditioning and Heating.

In concerns raised by the institute with the federal government chief executive officer Phil Wilkinson said the levy’s price impact across the main refrigerant gases would range between 300 and 500 per cent at the point of import.

He said the $16 billion industry which employed 160,000 people, was critically important to maintenance of hygienic food and indoor comfort, and yet the federal government has indicated that revenue from the levy would be entirely directed to consolidated revenue with no part to be directed to an investment in education and support for the industry’s transition.

“Any industry that was forced to absorb an overnight price increase greater than 300 per cent would be severely strained,” Mr Wilkinson said.

“The rapid inflation in refrigerant gas values, without any immediate change in supply or demand, will create strong incentives for avoiding the levy, and encourage the formation of a refrigerant black market. This will cause increased compliance costs, reduced collection of the levy, unsafe practices and flouting of the law,” he said.

“At the same time, the price shock caused by the levy will accelerate migration to alternative technology, and to lower global-warming-potential gases – both good things.

“Yet without adequate awareness of the issue through education and training, the HVAC & R industry faces workplace health and safety issues. And the levy will undoubtedly hurt small business and the economy in already difficult times,” Mr Wilkinson said.

The government communiqué calls for the formation of an interdepartmental committee, with representatives from government and industry, to provide funding in support of awareness-raising with industry and to allocate seed funding to extend the federally regulated refrigerant handling scheme to include all refrigerants.

Government communiqué calls for:

• the urgent formation of an interdepartmental and industry committee
• Funding to develop materials and hold forums to drive communication with industry
• An information campaign
• Seed funding to extend the current refrigerant handling licensing scheme to include all refrigerants and improve industry awareness about compliance and enforcement
• A fair allocation of a proportion of the carbon-equivalent levy on refrigerant gases to be reinvested in the future of this essential industry.

Industry background

The HVAC & R industry in Australia is estimated to directly employ at least 160,000 people, and in 2006 was estimated to be worth approximately $16 billion. AIRAH said:

• The industry is essential for the daily production and preservation of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fresh, hygienic food, the maintenance of comfort conditions in all major public and private buildings, and is a cross-cutting technology in every sector of the economy.
• Refrigerant gases comprise about 1 per cent of Australia’s annual direct greenhouse gas emissions.
• The industry is committed to energy efficiency. It consumes up to 21.9 per cent of all distributed electricity in Australia which in 2006 resulted in 7 per cent of all greenhouse gas emission in Australia in that year.
• All synthetic refrigerant gas is imported into Australia, either in bulk cylinders, or in equipment charged with gas.
• Damaging outcomes are already starting to occur in the supply chain for refrigerant gases, and for HVAC&R services and equipment in the lead up to the introduction of the levy.
• The impact on the average household, where a few hundred grams of gas is used in a domestic refrigerator or in a vehicle air conditioner, is expected to be minimal.
  However, the impact on some business sectors, particularly small businesses – in agriculture, food, refrigerated transport, hospitality, speciality food retailing, small commercial buildings, and in the health and aged care sectors – is expected to be both dramatic and unexpected by the end users.

Economics of the levy
The carbon-equivalent levy on bulk imports and pre-charged equipment is estimated to raise $300 million a year.

• About 5700 tonnes of refrigerant gas were imported in bulk cylinders or in equipment in 2010. These gases have global warming potential of between 1300 and 3900, depending on the type of gas.
• The price impact of the carbon-equivalent levy at the point of import will vary across the main refrigerant gases, ranging between 300 and 500 per cent. That increase at point of import will be passed down the supply chain as the additional costs of insurance, administration, finance, security, lost custom and numerous other business costs are inflated due to the levy’s impact.
• Representatives of the Australian government have told the HVAC&R industry that all funds raised by the levy are going to consolidated revenue, and there is no allocation for reinvestment in the industry in any form to aid the transition to a low carbon emission HVAC&R industry.

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council has approved the 14 hectare site comprising  64 lots with average lot size  of 650 square metres.

The solar powered development that will be self-reliant for potable water and sewage treatment.  Each dwelling will generate some green energy fed back to the grid.

Architects, planners and owners Ian Bailey and Annie Georgeson have nominated Mitchell Builders as the developer.  An architectural competition for the best design of the first three dwellings is expected to be announced in August.

See story

16 May 2012 –

Ms Wearne, speaking at the Parramatta Economic Development Forum at the Sydney Opera House, said that although transport issues were usually the responsibility of the state and federal governments, Parramatta City Council was taking a lead role for the region by funding the first stage of the plan with up to $1million.

The forum was integral to an event, Re-thinking Sydney, organised by Parramatta City Council to  discuss why it believes Parramatta and Western Sydney are the key to Sydney’s future and the engine room of the NSW economy.

The council’s bases its belief on the fact that of the seven million people living in the city by 2050 four million will be centred around Parramatta and western Sydney. “If we continue to put the jobs in the east and the people in the west, we are dooming future generations to transport gridlock,” is its methodology.

Ms Wearne, commenting on the light rail plan said: “This is a project that council believes in, and we feel will go a long way towards relieving congestion, providing strong regional connections across western Sydney and integrating with existing transport infrastructure such as heavy rail.”

The western Sydney network would be separated from the existing road and train networks, with virtually no sharing of road space, she said. It would improve access to employment in Westmead, Parramatta city centre, Macquarie Park and have links to the University of Western Sydney and Macquarie University.

It also aims to improve regional connections across western Sydney, including Castle Hill, Bankstown, Liverpool, Blacktown and Sydney Olympic Park.

The growth of western Sydney dominated comments sought by Parramatta City Council on the plan.

Brendan Lyon, chief executive officer, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia:

“The key challenge facing Sydney is how it accommodates its growth challenge, and how it re-engineers the fabric of its infrastructure networks to leverage the growth to develop a better, more liveable and more functional city.

“An essential component must be making the right decisions to shift economic hubs away from the existing CBD and using economic centres like Parramatta to drive economic growth. Things like Metro rail, the M4 East extension and the densification between and across global arc in Western Sydney must be the centrepiece.”

Kerry Bartlett, chief executive officer, Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils:

“Western Sydney’s potential is extraordinary. The vitality and capacity of its people, if properly tapped, will profoundly affect Sydney’s economic and cultural landscape for generations to come.”

Professor Peter Shergold, Chancellor University of Western Sydney

“Educational opportunity is the key with which to unlock the economic, social and cultural development of Greater Western Sydney. The region needs people who are trained and educated if the full potential of growth is to be realised.”

Christopher Brown, chairman Parramatta Economic Development.

“The growth of this region requires a grand partnership between federal, state and local government plus the private sector to deliver infrastructure and services to support its rapid expansion.”

Glenn Byres, executive director, NSW Property Council of Australia

“Parramatta is located in the centre of growth, flanked by Westmead, the largest bio- medical precinct in the southern hemisphere, and the University of Western Sydney, one of the fastest growing educational precincts.”

“Parramatta is already home to a strong commercial office market and investors will be eyeing off the next wave of opportunities.”

Dr Tim Williams, Committee of Sydney

“The Committee for Sydney has a greater Sydney perspective, which advocates the continued success of the existing CBD, but also for new economic space to be found for Sydney to ensure Sydney stays competitive.”

By Monique Alfris

17 May 2012 – This year is the UN’s International Year of Sustainable Energy for All). The focus is on providing energy access to the 2.7 billion people worldwide who still rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating, and the 1.4 billion who have no access to electricity.

Every week I hear of yet another low-cost, small-scale renewable energy product, which has come to market and proved itself in a “demonstration” project.

Which begs the question: Why hasn’t it proved itself at scale?

The small-scale solar lamp market is a good case study as to the issues with energy access. There is the camp which says the main issue is that product quality is not up to scratch see this report by GTZ Then there is the camp which says the products are fine, and produces awards each year to say as much (see Lighting Africa the World Bank’s program to develop commercial off-grid lighting markets).

Good Return, the organisation I am working with across Southeast Asia, has seen some success – there are a handful of interesting products which have somewhat proven themselves in the market.

Like the Coke-bottle solution featured in The New York Times , which brings light into dark, shuttered homes free of charge.

Then there is Australia’s own Barefoot Power , which produce small solar desk lamps for as little as $15. This has been a clear favourite among the villagers I’ve been surveying here in Indonesia. The lamps will last 2-3 years and can be paid back with the cost of around six months’ worth of kerosene.

The next step up in the small solar scale is Tough Stuff’s overhead lamp. Having been keen enough to see what their product can survive through, the company has thrown it off buildings, into blenders and under trucks. And they’ve got the videos on their website to prove it. In the Philippines we’ve seen their products dropped into buckets of water, bent by kids, walked all over – and still live to see another day.

At the top of the solar lamp pyramid is Sundaya , which industry experts have long lauded as “the best thing on the market.” When I showed it to the Indonesians, they loved the brightness of the lamp, but unfortunately weren’t so enthusiastic about the price.

And in my opinion it is this last statement which may prove the answer to the scale issue. The Indonesian farmers I am working with happily use poor-quality head torches that need to be replaced all the time. The light may be substantially less useful, but the cost per year is half that of the Sundaya lamp. The product is also readily available at the local market and they already effectively pay in “installments,” by purchasing replacement batteries.

The brightness they would gain from the Sundaya lamp just isn’t worth the additional cost and effort for a product they don’t understand.

This is part of a series on the UN’s International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. You can read the first in the series here. You can catch Monique on Twitter (@moniquealfris) or on her blog: http://moniquealfris.com.

15 May 2012 – Are recent news reports of impending gas shortages in NSW genuine or a way to soften up opposition to coal seam gas development, asks Matt Mushalik, a specialist observer of energy trends.

Australia, wanting to project itself as the energy super power faces domestic gas shortages in its premier state, NSW.

This is what the public is made aware of in articles in The Sydney Morning Herald titled “Gas supply to dwindle in the next 2 years” and “AGL warns of shortage as Gladstone sucks up supply”.

Is this just a strategy to soften up the opposition to coal seam gas development or is there really something more serious behind this news? We read:

“In its submission to the federal government’s draft white paper on energy, the state government has warned gas could begin to run short in NSW from as soon as 2014, as long-term supply contracts from the Cooper Basin in central Australia begin to expire”.

That’s how the expiry looks like, from a Sinclair Knight Mertz gas market modelling report for the Queensland Government.

This document on gas market modelling refers to a paper prepared by ACIL Tasman for Santos in March 2012, titled “Coal Seam Gas in NSW: implications for energy security and economic sustainability – a high level assessment.” Here we find a graph with all LNG projects in Queensland, neatly phased and stacked:

• See  full story and graphics

Nick Cerneaz

16 May 2012 – Nick Cerneaz has been appointed executive director of The Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering based at the University of Sydney, after  co-founding Seeing Machines, a computer vision technology company in the UK, which developed “real-time tracking of human heads, facial features and eye gaze direction,” and was listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM Board.

Dr Cerneaz is a graduate in mechanical engineering from the University of Sydney and has a PhD in  computer vision from Oxford.

He has also worked for four years with Mirada Solutions, a privately funded Oxford University technology spin-off, playing an instrumental role in overseeing the company’s growth from a six person start-up to a profitable business with 75 employees, and the company’s trade-sale to CTI Molecular Imaging Inc.

Professor Mike Dureau retires as executive director of The Warren Centre after nine years, but will continue to serve as a non-executive director of centre.

Adam Garnys

16 May 2012 – At Numurkah, 224 kilometres north of Melbourne, the local hospital is currently in temporary tent accommodation – everything from operating theatre to emergency room – after floods last year left the building rife with mould.

The job of helping to restore the original hospital operations and of ensuring the reclaimed building will meet exacting medical standards is just one in a heavy schedule of projects that is leading NSW based technical consultannt CETEC Ptd Ltd to consider adding to its team of 20.

NSW manager Adam Garnys said the other projects under way for the company included three productivity studies on offices in pre and post occupancy, work on a large medical research facility in Adelaide which is seeking a US based LEED green building certification, investigation of potential contamination on sites and dealing with dangerous goods.

At the Numurkah Hospital, Mr Garnys said: “The work we are doing is based around making sure the building will be of a suitable hygiene standard; it’s a health and safety issues for patients and for workers.

“We’re also working out how far the mould and bacteria has tracked and what’s worth salvaging and what’s not.

“Hospitals are more sensitive. If there is a recurrence of mould it could cause  problems to individuals.”

Lend Lease’s chief executive officer for the Australian business Mark Menhinnitt said the project would “unlock a new era for sustainable development by offering a viable alternative to traditional construction options which are carbon intensive.”

See our story on Grocon’s plans, announced in March last year, for a a 10-storey carbon neutral residential apartment building built from a high tech sustainably sourced laminated timber fabric:

• Grocon reaches for a resi star to rival Pixel

The Australian’s Imre Salusinszky will interview Mr Cousins on topics including his efforts to lead the public case in 2007 to block the Tasmanian pulp mill planned by Gunns.

The event is at the Westin Hotel, Grand Ballroom, No. 1 Martin Place at noon. See details

Mark Hather

15 May 2012 –Sinclair Knight Merz has appointed Mark Hather as group manager, transport clients in its water and environment business unit.

Mr Hather has more than 25 years experience in environmental planning and impact assessment including the project direction and management of major environmental impact statements and route assessment projects.

This includes involvement on the national broadband network, Sydney’s north west rail link, and SewerFix wet weather alliance projects in Australia.

Mr Hather worked at the NSW Department of Planning for 12 years, and was director of its major infrastructure assessments branch.

Robyn Parker

14 May 2012 – The NSW Government has announced a program to retrofit 150 of its buildings for energy efficiency with projected annual savings of $5.8 million.

Among the properties to be included are:  The NSW Police Academy at Goulburn, Westmead Hospital, and fire, police and ambulance stations (14 of these in the Illawarra).

The move, announced last week NSW Minister for the Environment Robyn Parker, preceded a similar investment, of $6.9 million, announced by on Monday the City of Sydney for energy and water retrofits over 45 buildings, estimated to produce yearly savings of $1 million.

• See our article Sydney Council starts trigen work with a retrofit to buildings

A spokesman for the minister said the big disparity in expected energy savings between the two programs, despite a similar investments  is because the state’s program will include major facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes which are large energy consumers and therefore capable of producing major savings.

A lighting overhaul at Westmead Hospital will save $600,000 on power bills a year, while the energy upgrade at the NSW Police Academy at Goulburn is set to cut energy use by 30 per cent, saving $240,000 on bills a year.

The program would be rolled out by local consultants and take “as long as it takes”, the spokesman said.

Ms  Parker said the Government Building Retrofit Program will save almost 30,000 megawatt hours of electricity.

“Like everyone, the NSW government is facing major power price rises,” Ms Parker said.

“We currently spend more than $200 million a year on electricity bills and that figure will more than double to about $420 million over the next decade with no action.”

About 100 of the buildings in the program will be small – including courthouses, motor registries, fire, ambulance and police stations and disability care facilities.

An agreement with the Ambulance of NSW paved the way for upgrades in 27 ambulance stations in the Hunter and Illawarra, Ms Parker said.

Other buildings to be included were 28 fire stations, two courthouses, 18 police stations, 28 regional hospitals, five motor registries, eight train stations and one correctional centre.

Ms Parker said the retrofits would involve simple measures that “any household or business could do to improve efficiency, like upgrading hot water systems and lighting and installing water efficient fixtures and fittings.”

The move was welcomed by the Green Building Council of Australia as a show of leadership.

“However, more can be done,” GBCA executive director – advocacy and business services, Robin Mellon.

“We would like to see the NSW government look beyond energy efficiency, as environmentally-sustainable buildings also encompass other factors including water, waste and indoor environment quality.

“By looking holistically at each building, the NSW Government can provide better economic, social and environmental outcomes for the state.

He encouraged the state government to seek Green Star certification for building retrofits.

“Other states including South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania have registered public sector projects, such as hospitals and schools, for Green Star ratings, and we call on the NSW Government to follow in these footsteps,” Mr Mellon said.

Customs House, Sydney

14 May 2012 – The City of Sydney has appointed Origin Energy to be lead contractor on a major overhaul of its 45 properties to make them more energy and water efficient, ahead of the rollout of the city’s trigeneration network, also by Origin.

The two-year $6.9 million project is designed to tackle energy demand as a first step in the trigen plans, with expected energy savings to shave more than $1 million from yearly energy bills and about $200,000 from water bills.

Work will include Town Hall House, Customs House, pools, community centres, libraries and car parks across the city and will include:

• Replacement of lighting in Customs House
• Upgrade to heating and airconditioning systems at Sydney Town Hall, Ultimo Community Centre and Victoria Park Pool to use less energy
• centralised power management systems for computers
• voltage reduction units to slash electricity use by pumps, fans and lights

“Retrofitting our buildings with energy and water efficiency technologies will cut our costs, and deliver almost triple the reduction in the City’s carbon emissions, from 6.8 to 19.9 per cent,” Ms Moore said.

Electricity use would be cut by about 6.4 million kilowatt hours, “enough to supply about 870 households a year, and save an estimated $880,000 a year in power bills.”

Origin will outsource water savings work to Ecosave, which will install aerated taps and shower heads, cistern modifiers in toilets and waterless urinals as part of its contribution.

Water consumption is expected to fall by 53,300 kilolitres a year, enough to supply nearly 300 households and reduce maintenance and carbon pollution costs.

Origin won the work after a tender process and a council statement said nergy and water performance guarantees would be independently verified.

Work is expected to be carried out without any closures of facilities.

“The City of Sydney is Australia’s first officially certified carbon neutral government. The City’s 2030 target to reduce carbon emissions by 70 per cent is one of the most ambitious targets of any Australian government,” the council said.

Tom Roper, speaking at a 2010 property event in Canberra

11 May 2012 – Following is the text of an open letter sent to  Greg Combet, Minister for Climate Change & Energy Efficiency, from Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council president Tom Roper, sent Wednesday, 9 May 2012.

Dear Minister Combet,

I write to you, both in sorrow and in anger, at the Government’s action in breaking its key election promise on Tax Breaks for Green Buildings.

Many of our members have already contacted us, concerned at what this broken promise means for future government/industry relations.

You will remember that it was industry that requested the program be delayed to a July 1st 2012 starting date, to improve its design and effectiveness.  Following the April 2011 announcement of an industry/government roundtable by your colleague, the Assistant Treasurer, the Hon Bill Shorten, the program remained in the forward estimates.

This attempt at cooperation seems to have been trashed by last night’s announcement. The building industry, as well as the substantial reduction in carbon emissions, are the casualties of the Treasurer’s announcement.

The Roundtable produced a proposal that was easily implementable, without the requirement for legislation and took into account the need to minimise expenditure in the 2012 / 2014 financial years.  I have asked, on a number of occasions, without success, for approval to distribute the Roundtable Report to at least those involved in its work.

Building owners and managers and the broad ranging ASBEC membership eagerly anticipated the scheme which would have encouraged the retrofit of existing stock and the significant expansion of higher NABER’s rated buildings.  What was to be a comprehensive plan to reduce emissions from buildings is now limited to the much smaller and uncertain effects of the carbon price.

ASBEC’s 2010 Second Plank Update report identified some 46 mega tonnes of CO2-e emissions reductions through improved buildings energy efficiency, the quickest and easiest reduction to improve the economy’s carbon foot print. The work undertaken by both the Centre for International Economics and the Allen Consulting Group was made available to your Department and the Government.

This has been totally ignored in the statement made in Part 1 of Budget Paper No 2 (page 42), where it is claimed that the scheme “would have driven higher cost abatement than that delivered by the carbon price.”  Our estimation, through our work on the Tax Breaks scheme and our Second Plank Update report, is in the order of $12 a tonne.

The abandoned scheme’s reductions would have produced real tonnes, not estimates or prophecies as owners were not reimbursed until the post-retrofit NABERS rating confirmed the actual reductions.

Scrapping the programme altogether sends clear signals to a sector already fatigued by uncertainty around carbon pricing.  In the long term, it will undoubtedly mean a loss of potential jobs that would have been created through retrofit projects, which are far less likely to eventuate without the scheme and will add to unemployment in the building sector in the foreseeable future.

It diminishes Australia as a leader in climate change mitigation, in contrast with major programs in the United States and Europe.  It damages the thinking that has been part of the National Energy Savings Initiative and the work done by and for your Department on White Certificates.

If the Government wants to achieve the maximum carbon emissions reductions, complementary measures such as Tax Breaks for Green Buildings must accompany the Carbon Tax.

Yours sincerely,

The Hon Tom Roper?President

On sentiment, follow the leader (not) …and a birthday note from TFE

11 May 2012 –It’s tough but we’re really busy.

We’ve heard that comment about Sydney, oh maybe 10 times now…

BIS Shrapnel’s Frank Gelber, speaking at the Property Funds Association conference on the Gold Coast last week nailed this curious and amusing attitude of Sydneysiders: ” Sydney investors know Sydney will never recover ever again…”

(And when there is a boom, the feeling is that this will never end either.)

We’ve given a lot of space this issue to the markets, the macro outlook for the economy and the financial because right now it’s cited as a key barrier to the takeup of sustainability retrofits especially in the B, C and D grade property level,  typically owned by the unlisted funds and private investors represented by the PFA.

But as you scroll through the views of the speakers and some of the delegates at the conference you can see it’s not all bad news.

Gelber said, Queensland is sitting on the start of an “almighty boom” with a huge amount of investment already in place for the next five years.

Researcher Tony Crabb said Australia was poised for a great medium and long term future, if for no other reason than our proximity to China and the Chinese love of property investment.

Local Carbon Australia’s Meg McDonald outlined some of the funding options available to assist in retrofits.

But the poor sentiment is not the only reason for reluctance to embark on a cleaner energy future.

Some of the engineers, consultants, finance and leasing consultants can prove saving and payback in next to no time.

In a chat with Arup engineer Eric Serret this week, he said a profile he had recently completed for a 30,000 square metre building showed there could be a 15-20 per cent return on investment through energy savings. Still the client said no.

What’s going on?

It’s not just the economy. More relevant is probably the risk averse, worried and overworked executives who have to embrace what’s seen as a risky venture that don’t’ know much about and will take up a lot of time they really don’t have.

As one wit said, there’s a saying: you never get sacked for not making a decision. It’s the decision making and action that’s risky.

Budget black holes
After Tuesday night’s budget, big chunks of the sustainable property industry went into a funk. The federal government has been seriously engaging with the property industry for a few years now, listening and taking action on planning, cities, infrastructure and green buildings.

Now there’s an about face on the Tax Breaks for Green Buildings program, which had been touted as a $1 billion program.

Touted is the right word… it turned out to have been a faulty program with faulty design and worse faulty intention.

At least The Greens are maintaining their loyalty to the sustainable property industry. Leader Christine Milne who seems to be closest of all green groups (and other politicians) to understanding the economics and drivers of this industry, has promised to keep needling the government on the tax breaks issues.

Some people though had a more restrained view and said tax breaks are complex and hardly worth the trouble at the best of times.

The Property Council’s Peter Verwer told The Fifth Estate that the latest proposal from  the industry roundtable working on a new design for the program was to convert it to a straight grant, payable on verification of energy savings.

This pushes costs out significantly, which makes the axing all the more curious.

What seems to have happened is that the Tax Breaks have fallen victim not to the reality of their cost but to sentiment. The need to look tough on business.

At least the feds did not mess with or delay the carbon price as some feared.

And for what its worth the Clean Energy Futures package of $10 billion could pick up the slack with $5 billion supposedly allocated to energy efficiency.

Regardless the more level headed people say the business drivers of efficiency and competitiveness will continue and globally the momentum for big business to clean up its act is picking up where government are failing.

100 today
It’s just past three years since The Fifth Estate launched, and this, our 100th issue seems a good time to mark the occasion and say a huge thanks to our supporters – readers, sponsors and casual advertisers alike.

Your part in this is what TFE is all about.

What keeps us going is the amazing feedback we get.  From the top corporate levels to the sole operators struggling to keep afloat in uncertain times and stay committed to an industry that they are passionate about.

This industry deserves to flourish and excel and it knows it.

Ebooks
We want to do our part and in efforts to deepen reader experience we have embarked on a short series of ebooks. [Thank you Steve Jobs and all technology nerds who have made this possible].

The first – a data base of the top university courses in sustainability related to the built environment – is already on our front page and trending right at the top of our monthly hits widget (front page, bottom right).

Next will be an ebook on Environmental Upgrade Agreements. We’ve already held two roundtables with industry leaders in this wonderful new form of retrofit finance.

Siemens, NAB, Napier & Blakeley and Cundall have come aboard as sponsors, Siemens as lead sponsor.

This commitment – and that of many others – ought to demonstrate that this Australian version of retrofit finance looks like a winner, with lasting power.

Next ebook off the virtual presses will be a special project report of GPT’s new head offices in the MLC building in Sydney, covering in  detail how an office in a 33 year old building could be made six star Green Star..

In addition to these ventures we’ve also this week held our first “salon” dinner with visiting green building guru and author Jerry Yudelson – here  for the big ARBS event in Melbourne earlier this week – along with a handful of industry leaders interested to hear his challenging thoughts. The event was kindly sponsored by Investa.

On the social networking side, we’ve modestly embraced Twitter and used it to source stories and sentiment of major events. A great resource. There’s Facebook too, which we’ve made a small start on.

Spinifex, our column for the industry by the industry is thriving, And yes, it often gets spikey. Especially with regular columnist Michael Mobbs whose agenda is to push the boundaries of sustainability, pure and simple. Great work Mike, and a huge thanks.

A massive thanks too to Lynne Blundell who continues to pour out great indepth pieces on sustainable property and is currently writing our EUA ebook.

And sincere thanks too to Lyn Drummond who leaves us soon for a move to Europe after 18 months.

Yes, we’re looking for a bright spark to take her place.

Contact editorial@thefifthestate.com.au

Simon Wild

11 May 2012 – Section J of the Building Code of Australia which relates to minimum environmental standards is starting to cause problems for some architects according to Simon Wild who says his company Cundall is picking up quite a lot of consultancy work in this area. The sticking point, he says is building fabric.

Wild, who is originally from the UK says the Europeans implemented similar minimum standards about 20 years ago.

What’s happening he said is that at the top end of the property development there’s been no problem with higher standards; companies have been motivated by competitive pressures so they’ve pushed the envelope, on a voluntary basis.

Now comes some regulation to capture the bottom end.

“At one end of the bell curve has pushed up and the front end not pushing hard enough,” Wild says.

“From an architectural point of view the knowledge isn’t out there. From the government point of view, it’s starting to shift the market. The UK brought in similar rules in 2001.”

Wild says there’s another – counter pressure –under way and it’s driven by the creeping tightening of finance and ramping up of construction cost.

“Now the market is questioning how far you go in sustainability from a competition perspective: costs are rising and finance is getting harder.

“So people are asking, ‘how far do we really need to go with this to be competitive in the market?’”

• Reform of the planning scheme amendment (rezoning) process – reducing the number of steps and the length of time involved
• A code assessment track for simple, low-impact permit applications
• Reform zones and planning provisions to simplify complex and lengthy regulations
• A review of the Farming Zone to give more flexibility to Victoria’s farmers and rural communities
• An increase in performance accountability for local councils and state referral authorities.

The Victorian Planning System Ministerial Advisory Committee received 547 written submissions, and held meetings with over 130 individuals, groups, associations, peak bodies and local councils during 2011, Planning Minister Matthew Guy said.

Details www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/planning

The awards, presented by ARBS chairman Ian Hopkins, went to:

Young achiever
Daniel Tan Teng Yeow. Mr Tan Teng Yeow joined Fantech after graduating from university in 2006. His first major project was to assess the potential of impulse technology using JetVent products for the Australian market. Mr Tan Teng Yeow has written a design guide on the technology and .presented his findings to the Standards Committee for AS1668.2 with the intention of updating a supplementary guide for the Standard.

Outstanding service and maintenance provider- Hi Flow Industries
Hi Flow Industries was founded by Brett Saunders in 2005. At the time, it battled the stigma of being a small business, with a lack of an established client base. Now the company employs 50 full-time people, and has won several awards, including the BRW Fast 100 Company 2010. Last year it was a finalist in the Telstra Best Medium Business Award category.

ARBS product excellence award: Fantech
Fantech’s impulse fans improve car park ventilation by incorporating brushless direct current technology which improves energy efficiency.

Project excellence award – James L. Williams, Pixel Building
James L Williams was responsible for the supply and installation of mechanical services for the Pixel building on the old Carlton Brewery site. It has been awarded the highest ever Green Star rating in Australia,  with 100 per cent GreenStar score from the Green Building Council, plus five innovation points.  It is carbon neutral, is water balanced, has a platinum core under the LEED rating system, a gas fired absorption chiller and 100 per cent fresh air. The façade includes smart window technology that automatically opens windows on cool nights to enable the night air into the building for cooling.

Refrigeration project excellence – Bitzer Australia, Strathbrook Industries Services
Bitzer Australia, together with Strathbrook Industries Services, have combined to provide F Mayer Imports with an energy efficient refrigerated space solution. It uses a holistic combination of well insulated walls, rapid roller doors to prevent infiltration, low global warming potential refrigerants, efficient compressor technology, waste heat recover for floors, and glycol defrosting evaporators.

Outstanding education training- ACMA
The Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors Association’s Managing for Profit course provides project management training for the air conditioning, engineering and mechanical services industries. Students complete workplace based assignments during the 13-week, off campus program. They also attend two one-week residential workshops. They are supported throughout the program by industry mentors.

Hall of fame

The awards were followed by four were inducted into the ARBS Hall of Fame for their contributions to the industry:

Clive Broadbent
Mr Broadbent is recognised for his research work on preventative measures for Legionnaires’ disease hazards, particularly those that may be presented by cooling tower. He has been awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his work in helping to understand Legionella. He has authored 12 TAFE models on air conditioning systems, and is chairperson for a number of standards setting committees.

Gerard Whittker
Gerard established the Australian maintenance divisions of Haden Engineering, and was appointed chief executive officer in 1994. He played a major role in setting up the project management team for the Sydney Opera House air conditioning and fire systems contracts. He was chairman of a committee for Standards Australia to develop local standards for Controlled Environment.

Grahame Gibbs
Mr Gibbs was the founding committee member of the Australian Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. He established the Bachelor of Technology (Building Services and Air Conditioning) at the University of Technology, Sydney, and spent many years as a lecturer at UTS.

Kevin O’Shea
Kevin has been in the HVAC & R industry for 45 years. He has been a director of Refrigerant Reclaim Australia, and chairman of the Australian Refrigeration Council, He is a member of the advisory committee for national licensing for the industry, Board Member of the Electro Group Training and Chairman of the Electro Skills Centre.

11 May 2012 –  Following are key points from Green leader Christine Milne’s response to the federal budget.

In Tuesday’s budget, we saw from the government a fundamentally confused and internally conflicted picture. Having said that, what we just saw from the Leader of the Opposition’s reply to the budget was a picture of irritating static and no ideas for the future. On Tuesday night, we saw a government that wants to make Australia the country of the fair go by handing out cost-of-living payments while at the same time cutting benefits to single parents and saying it cannot afford to increase support to our poorest, most vulnerable people to help lift them out of the cycle of debt and unemployment.

We see a government that wants Australians to be healthier, working with the Greens-at the Greens’ instigation-to get a serious downpayment towards a national universal dental care scheme. But, at the same time, the government could not find $340,000 to support the successful Bsafe domestic violence program to assist women and children who are at risk of domestic violence to remain safely living in their communities.

We see a government moving to tackle accelerating global warming– that huge, overarching challenge that confronts us this century – by introducing, as a result of the agreement with the Greens, a legislative package that will for the first time ever see polluters paying for the damage they do and investing revenue in clean renewable energy, helping householders and businesses to cut wasteful energy use, and supporting Australians to meet rising costs. It is the first time we are seeing a shift in the taxation system to shift responsibility for pollution and inefficient resource use and take it off personal income.

That is the 21st century way in which we are going to address the sustainability crisis. At the same time, however, this budget allocates yet more billions to the fossil fuel companies, causing the problem in handouts to make diesel cheaper, to make mining cheaper and to help them export more and more polluting coal, every tonne of which comes back to us in the form of worse floods, more intense fires, cyclones and drought. We are on track for an increase of at least four degrees of global warming because of what we are doing.

We see a government that wants to invest in building a better future for us all; but, in the middle of a boom, holding the purse strings of the most robust economy in the world, it is saying, “Sorry, we can’t afford long-term investment in nation-building right now.” That long-term investment is needed to prepare the nation and get it moving away from the resource based economy it is dependent on and towards a creative, brain based, service and information based economy.

There is a better way, and it is about understanding that we live in a society, not an economy. It is about appreciating that the economy is a tool for the benefit of our society, for the health of our community and for guiding our relationship with the environment that sustains us. If we sacrifice our welfare, our health and our future on the altar of one economic measure, we have fundamentally misunderstood why we humans created this idea that we call ‘the economy’ in the first place.

This is especially so if the economic tools actually measure the wrong thing. For instance, this budget contains forecasts for gross domestic product; that is the metric by which the government’s success in managing the economy is currently judged. But the GDP is quite inadequate for this task. It covers only market activities, excluding work done in the home and by community volunteer groups. GDP makes no allowance for how income is distributed across society. It does not capture the health or happiness of our people or the quality of our environment. As Robert Kennedy put it:

“… it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

What we need are genuine progress indicators. We need a significant shift in how we measure and report to the nation. The Treasury actually has a wellbeing framework-not that anyone in Australia would know that- which looks not just at consumption possibilities but also at the distribution of opportunities. It looks at sustainability, it looks at the risks being borne by the community and also it looks at the complexity of life. The government should put more resources into constructing broader measures of economic wellbeing which capture these measures.

A summary measure of social progress that tells us whether quality of life is improving would be very welcome in the Australian community. We already have a national balance sheet, but it should publish an adjusted GDP, for example, which allows for a reduction in the value of our natural resources from mining as well as counting the value of our mining exports. Environmental degradation should also be brought into account. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso expressed the problem when he was calling for relevant measures and said:

We cannot face the challenges of the future with the tools of the past.

Our bank balance as a country, our surplus or our deficit, is important. We can borrow money to invest in a better future, we can put money away for big costs which we know are coming our way, but it is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. If reaching the surplus this year is going to hurt people who are struggling now, if it has the potential to drive South-Eastern Australia into recession, throwing people out of jobs, if it means we do not make the kinds of investments in health, education and a clean environment which we know we need to make urgently, then now is not the time to reach a surplus. It is not just the Greens saying that; the former Treasury Secretary and Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser described the commitment to deliver a budget surplus next year, irrespective of the economic circumstances, as ‘a dud policy’. ANU professor and former Reserve Bank Board member Warwick McKibbin called it ‘purely a political decision which could be very dangerous’ and Professor John Quiggin described the commitment as ‘ill-advised’. Economic journalists have called it ‘risky ‘and ‘reckless’, as have bank economists, and business spokespeople have made the same comment, including even the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who has said that there is ‘no point in pursuing a surplus at all costs’.

There are many paths to a budget surplus, but the Gillard government has no straight path. Its budget is a contradiction that is great for teeth but bad for brains. It sets up some big reforms and ignores others in its drive for the surplus. The surplus is not a vision for the nation; it is not an end in itself.

Having said that, the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, has suggested his path this evening, and it would be a disaster for Australia. It is a straight path to environmental degradation and wreckage of the economy, since he intends to keep all of the benefits but has not said how he would raise the revenue or the extent to which he would cut the Public Service.

The Greens have a vision for Australia. Ours is a vision for a fairer, cleverer society, a society which understands itself and its place in the world, a society that is truly living within its means. We have a vision of a budget that can make this a reality, paying for vital investment in our future by making our tax base fairer, healthier and more sustainable in all senses of the word.

Looking at the budget delivered on Tuesday night, the first question which comes to mind is: what does it reflect of our place in the world in terms of Australia’s place in the Asian century? The Treasurer, Mr Swan, said that Australia’s place in the world is being closer than ever to the epicentre of global growth as the weight of activity moves to Asia.

Yet as one of the richest nations in the region we have reneged on a global commitment to 0.5 per cent of gross national income in overseas aid by 2015, leaving our nearest neighbours in 18 developing countries, including PNG, East Timor and West Papua, wondering what sort of neighbour we really are in this Asian century in taking $3 billion away from them and, as the peak body for overseeing overseas aid and all the groups associated with it has said, not saving the lives of 800,000 people.

The Greens are opposed to the overseas aid cuts in the budget. As a wealthy nation and one of the few nations within reach of a budget surplus, we have an obligation to meet our international commitments on aid. Having said that, the Leader of the Opposition has also indicated that the opposition will not meet its obligations on overseas aid, and a commitment that has been made by the Leader of the Opposition to 0.5 per cent without a time frame is a completely meaningless and disingenuous statement.

I heard tonight the Leader of the Opposition saying that Asian languages are how he would position Australia in an Asian century. Nobody should believe that, because I can inform the Senate that in 2002 it was Prime Minister Howard who cancelled all the national Asian languages programs in Australian schools. I will say that again: the centrepiece of the Leader of the Opposition’s, Tony Abbott’s, reply to the budget tonight was an investment in Asian languages. He was here when former Prime Minister John Howard did not see Australia’s place in the world as being part of an Asian century and cancelled that. While it is true that many people in Australia do not speak Asian languages, you can point the finger back to the person who cancelled the programs in Australian schools a decade ago.

This budget has also seen the biggest increase to our permanent migration intake since the Second World War, yet the government has again failed to give a fair go to some of the world’s most vulnerable people. With the humanitarian intake capped at 13,750 places for the fourth year in a row, it makes up only six per cent of the total migration places compared to 18 per cent under both the Keating and Howard governments. Our reputation in the region is further undermined by our mandatory detention system for asylum seekers, which is so far from the fair go the Treasurer talked about in his budget speech. And we heard tonight from the coalition leader that his vision for Australia in the Asian century is people speaking Asian languages, while they turn the boats back.

The government continues to spend billions on offshore processing rather than allowing vulnerable people to live in the community. In fact, there is a billion dollar blowout in immigration detention centre costs. The average cost of a community release program is $10,400 per person compared to more than $137,000 if an asylum seeker is kept indefinitely in a detention centre. How does this fit with our place in the region? How does it fit with Australia’s sudden new commitment of an American base on Australian soil? Having said that, we do welcome the cuts to the defence budget. It is a bold decision by the government and a good decision, even though we would like to see some of deferred projects scrapped or rethought entirely.

Biodiversity Fund
What are the challenges in this century? The overwhelming one, as I mentioned before, is climate change and the fact that the planet is reaching its ecological limits in terms of being able to provide natural resources or absorb wastes. The Treasurer referred in his budget speech to Australia needing to live within its means. We agree, but this means living within our ecological means as well. Our fate as a society is intrinsically linked to the health of our environment, including our productive land and biodiversity.

I am very pleased that this budget delivers on the Biodiversity Fund and the Carbon Farming Initiative that the Greens negotiated as part of the Clean Energy Package. Last Friday $271 million was announced as being dispersed across the country from the Biodiversity Fund, much of that money going to NRM groups, other community groups and landholders to steward the country. I am also pleased that the second phase of Caring for our Country has been funded, but I am very disappointed that there has been an effective cut to the program by the inclusion of the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement, which ought to have been a one-off on top of that money, and there are other cuts through biosecurity and other measures that have been left in to come out of the Caring for our Country funds.

If we accept that climate change is the major issue that it is, then the budget must demonstrate consistency in addressing the challenges alongside the implementation of the carbon price, and that is missing. There is more than 12 times more spending on roads than rail in this budget. If you are serious about climate change, you have to act on it and you have to take into account peak oil. This is a ridiculous figure. While we welcome the funding for a national transport planning and high speed rail unit-for which the Greens have achieved a $20 million investment-where is the plan for funding the implementation of high-speed rail? You can keep on planning things for years, but where is the money going to come from to deliver it?

Green buildings
There has also been a deferral of funding to upgrade the grid for renewables, and that is out on the never-never. You cannot roll out renewables and energy efficiency if you do not have the money.

There has also been the scrapping of the [tax breaks for] green buildings program. It is quite wrong of the government to think that the carbon price will be enough to drive the greening of commercial buildings, when evidence around the world highlights the array of non-price barriers to this action. We need to provide better incentives. It is also bad faith when an industry which agreed to defer this measure because they wanted to get it right are now being punished for due diligence.

This is one aspect of the budget that we are very unhappy with and that we will continue to press the government to address.

Water
In thinking about where our nation will be in another 10 years, consideration of our water resources is essential. Protecting and preserving our precious water is another long-term challenge that we have little faith this government is committed to addressing in a sustainable way. The Greens will continue to ensure that at least 4,000 gigalitres is returned to the Murray-Darling system. This leads me to mention rural and regional Australia.

Rural
The greatest challenge for rural and regional Australia is to lift productivity without access to more land and without access to more water. That means massive investment in research and development. I am pleased there is money for the Beale review but disappointed there is not more R&D money, particularly for the apple and pear industries, which are now having to respond to competition from New Zealand apples. More generally, people in rural and regional Australia need money spent on R&D to lift productivity. They also need an investment in mental health services, because there are huge consequences for individuals and communities in rural and regional Australia, who have very limited access to mental health services, and they are entitled to their fair share.

Reconciliation
Any vision for Australia that respects its place in the world has to start with a true reconciliation with our first people. As a nation we were proud of the apology to the stolen generation. We have been proud of the recognition in the Constitution that we are working on for Indigenous people. But the government has outlined a 10-year funding plan for its extension of the Northern Territory intervention and, while long-term funding for community based service provision for Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory is welcome, it is very troubling that much of that money seems to have been cut from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs for the rest of the country. Furthermore, the government’s funding commitments are made in the context of extending the intervention, particularly income management regimes, and we will continue to strongly oppose those. There is no clarity in this budget on how the government intends to move on reconciliation when there is no new money for Indigenous languages, for example. If we are not addressing one of the fundamental causes of the loss of cultural identity and the ability of people to actively engage through education, how do we as a nation reconcile?

I do want to mention the additional funding for SBS at this point, because this is something that the Greens fought hard for and we welcome, in particular the funding for SBS to establish a free-to-air Indigenous television service with national coverage. SBS has a vital role to play in creating a more coherent and inclusive society. Another incredibly important part of building a society which is confident of its place in the world is investing appropriately in the arts and cultural institutions.

The arts tell our story as a nation and I am very pleased that in the budget we have been able to secure $40 million to offset the efficiency dividend so that the National Gallery, the National Museum, the National Library, the Film and Sound Archive and other cultural institutions have been protected from ongoing cuts.

How do we pay for nation building if we are going to invest for the longer term? A fair country ensures sufficient revenue through progressive taxation that benefits the whole community. In this budget the government took notice of the Greens and abandoned its tax cuts for big business, but we would like to have seen that money invested in long-term, permanent, systemic change, not just the old solutions of cash handouts and funding the surplus through cuts to social services and to service delivery.

Big reformist investment in education, innovation, clean energy and infrastructure needs to be made and we have to raise money, and the Greens are the only party in here with a revenue-raising proposal. We have sought that from the coalition and they have failed very badly. We would have supported a company tax cut for small business and we still will. We will have a good look at the loss carry-back scheme proposed in place of the tax cuts, and we want to talk to small business about how that might work.

We also support the National Disability Insurance Scheme and we welcome the billion-dollar investment in the first stage, but we ask the government and the coalition: where is the money coming from to roll it out in full? That is why you have to be prepared to raise money. The Greens would have supported a properly applied and developed mining tax. We would have abolished the diesel fuel rebate and other concessions for the mining industry. We would have introduced a millionaires tax similar to that supported by President Obama and championed by the new President of France but rejected by the government.

The Greens want a fairer society and we are worried by the increasing inequality in our community. We were pleased to be able to secure from the government the new dental reform, a reform that actually addresses the waiting lists. The $345 million for a public dental waiting list blitz that will help 400,000 Australians is extremely welcome and we look forward to working with the government to bring permanent change, because permanent Denticare, like Medicare, is something this nation needs if it is going to offer equal access to good health to all.

This budget contains other elements of fairness but they are undercut by a lack of consistent vision. For example, we welcome the additional support for families, but it is delivered on the back of cuts to support for single parents, which we will oppose. With its measly $210 allowance, the government gives the perception of caring for those people on income support, but what is needed is a $50 a week increase in Newstart and increases in other payments to help people get out of poverty.

The Greens remain committed to a vision of Australia that includes addressing and relieving poverty. It is unclear to the Greens from this budget whether the government actually shares that vision of addressing poverty.

It is my view that Australians are anxious that they are not keeping up with the demands of modern life. I do not believe people are aspiring to be wealthy; they just want a better quality of life and they want to be confident that they are not being left behind.

Cash handouts do not relieve that anxiety. They actually increase and entrench it by cementing the feeling people have that they are struggling but only being given temporary, one-off relief. And it plays straight into the fear campaign of the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, which is responsible for so much of the nervousness and discomfort in Australian society. What is needed is system-wide, long-term change which guarantees high-quality education and health services for all, adequate support for the unemployed and for people with disabilities, no matter how acquired. It is for this reason we are disappointed the government has not embraced the Gonski review and committed to the education reform and funding needed to ensure that all students everywhere can access high-quality public education.

We are disappointed that, at a time when we need innovation in our economy, the government is doubling the fees-taking $316 million out of the pockets of students around the country-for maths and science students in universities. We worked hard to secure $54 million for maths and science education. We are pleased we did that, but where is the incentive when university fees are doubled? The fact is that you cannot be a clever country, you cannot be an innovative country and you cannot change from exporting things you dig up to exporting the product of brain and human capacity unless you invest in education, and that is seriously missing from this year’s budget.

I wanted to mention some specific measures. The Greens were pleased to see the doubling of the liquid assets test for people on Newstart. It is something we have advocated for a long time and it is a good, fair initiative from the government. We also welcome the announcement of a National Children’s Commissioner to operate under the Australian Human Rights Commission, which my colleague Senator Hanson-Young has been calling for for a number of years. We also welcome the lowering by four-fifths of the number of cigarettes that can be bought duty-free. It is a positive revenue and health measure.

My colleague Adam Bandt, the member for Melbourne, has worked hard with the Greens to ensure that people benefit from the $20 million investment for the restoration and redevelopment of the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton and $1½ million over four years to roll JobWatch out nationally, giving it a future beyond just supporting Melbourne’s workers. This is the type of systemic change that the Greens try to bring about. This is not just about one place; this is about enhancing the environmental and social capital for the nation.

On Tuesday night, Treasurer Swan told Australians:

A surplus provides our best defence against dramatic changes in the global economy.

But my question is: is it a defence against changes in the global environment from which you cannot hide? With respect, this statement is one of the greatest and clearest demonstrations that the Labor Party has its priorities wrong. At the beginning of this century we are in the critical decade for addressing the biggest challenge facing us-that is, how we are going to address climate change in the time frame.

The Greens believe that our best defence against, our best preparation for, dramatic changes in the global environment as well as the global economy is to invest in a healthy, well-educated, fair society. We envisage a society trained and working in a clean economy, transitioned out of fossil fuels to zero net carbon, understanding and valuing our place in the world and accelerating our transition away from a dig-it-up, cut-it-down economy to one which aspires to be a highly productive nation and a socially just, compassionate nation driving substantial social change in the region, assisting with capacity building in the region and driving peace and cooperation in the region-instead of driving climate change, which will lead to so much conflict and movement of people.

I conclude by saying that the economy is a tool for the benefit of our society. Only when we embrace that fact will we begin to build the kind of country that we want to live in. The Greens have a very clear vision for that country that we want to live in. We are prepared to work for it, we are prepared to raise the money to deliver it and we are prepared to make long-term investments in nation building as well as long-term investments in moving away, as I said in my opening remarks, from the politics of the veneration of the market that focuses on an economy of individuals, and moving to a society that works together for better outcomes for all of us collectively.