By Lynne Blundell

20 June 2013 – Remember when sustainable property was all about the glitz and glamour of new buildings and the latest technology bling? That was then. This is now: shrinking budgets, a focus on energy efficiency retrofits and a demand for proof that buildings are actually operating properly once the refurbishment dust settles.

For that you need the right measurement tools and good, reliable data.

Right on cue the new Green Star – Performance ratings tool enters the market. It seems to have arrived just in time for an energy efficiency retrofit boom.

As The Fifth Estate reported last week, one major building services company has so much work on its books it is loathe to advertise its wares even though it is about to embark on a major drive in the industrial sector. Others are quietly ramping up their workforce to cope with future demand.

And the demand is coming from all directions with large energy consumers such as hotels, casinos and healthcare sectors launching programs to make their buildings more energy efficient.

The penny seems to have dropped.

This was highlighted by a recent report by NSW Auditor General Peter Achterstraat, which found that NSW Health’s energy costs had risen by almost 50 per cent over the past four years and the department had not taken advantage of NSW Treasury loans for energy efficiency initiatives. He called for an overhaul of the current approach and a focus on energy efficiency.

• See our article this issue NSW Health audit report: too much energy waste; try harder

The Victorian Government’s Greener Government Buildings program has provided a boost to the retrofit industry in that state.

Under the program government departments must commit to implementing energy efficiency programs at sites accounting for at least 90 per cent of their energy consumption by 2018. Treasury loans for energy efficiency initiatives are available for projects that pay for themselves within a seven year period using energy and water cost savings delivered by the project.

As of March 2013, the Greener Government Buildings program had facilitated 32 large-scale building upgrade projects, including sites such as Federation Square, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Museums Victoria, including Melbourne Museum, Royal Exhibition Building and Scienceworks, and RMIT’s entire property portfolio.

Rob Murray-Leach, chief executive officer of the Energy Efficiency Council says the Greener Government Buildings program has made a lot of difference in the amount of retrofit activity in Victoria, particularly in the healthcare sector. Other factors boosting activity include increasing sophistication of retrofitting service providers and available data as well as more interest from financial providers.

“Compared to new builds, retrofits are doing relatively well. We are definitely seeing substantial interest from financial providers and building owners in refurbishment because they are now understanding the financing options a lot better.

“There is increasing literacy amongst financiers regarding energy efficiency,” says Murray-Leach.

While Environmental Upgrade Agreements or EUAs are part of the new suite of options, the market is still getting its head around these and there is room for more education on how they work, says Murray-Leach.

Green Star jumps on performance train

With this renewed focus on energy efficiency comes an even greater need for building performance measurement tools.

Until now NABERS has been the sole provider of a national rating tools for measuring the energy and water consumption of commercial buildings, with ratings for offices, shopping centres, hotels and data centres. Now the Green Building Council of Australia has entered the fray, adding a building operational performance tool to its suite of Green Star ratings tools.

So where does the Green Star Performance tool fit in?

The GBCA sees enormous potential for its new Green Star – Performance, particularly in the massive pool of under performing existing buildings, currently accounting for the vast majority of Australia’s building stock.

In its promotional material for the new tool the GBCA points out that when the US Green Building Council launched its rating tool for Existing Buildings’ Operations and Maintenance, LEED-EBOM, it drove more certifications in one year than all the other LEED tools have done in their history.

“We expect Green Star – Performance to have the same impact in Australia,” the GBCA says.

Robert Milagre at the Ideaction 2013 FM conference in Hobart

Robert Milagre, the GBCA’s Manager Green Star Development, told The Fifth Estate the new Green Star performance ratings tool would allow sectors not currently included in NABERS ratings to measure their operational performance, including schools, universities and industrial facilities, with more categories included later.

It will provide rating of building operations across nine impact categories – management, indoor environment quality, energy, transport, water, materials, land use and ecology, emissions and innovation.

Milagre believes the new tool will also attract a wider audience than existing Green Star rating tools, including more owners of second tier, lower grade existing properties.

“The reasons why people use the Green Star tools vary across sectors and property types. There are indications from our industry workshops that the lower end of the market will at least test the performance tool. Out of our 32 beta testing workshops less than half of the participants had Green Star certification in the past, half were from offices and half from other sectors,” Milagre said.

The new ratings tool will have a more streamlined online certification process and will cost a lot less – around one third the certification cost of existing Green Star tools (between $6750 to $8250 for members compared to $22,000 for design and construct tools).

Streamlined Green Star is welcome news

This will be welcome news for many in the industry as high Green Star costs and onerous certification process have increasingly been cited as a disincentives for building owners to apply for certification.

Romilly Madew at the Green Cities conference 2013, flanked by Alex Cutler, CEO NZ GBC

It was an issue chief executive Romilly Madew vowed to address in her presentation on the GBCA’s future plans at this year’s Green Cities conference.

On Thursday Madew announced that a new more accessible and more affordable Green Star would soon hit the market.

“While we can be proud of Green Star’s achievements, we know we can’t afford to be complacent,” she said in an article posted on the council’s website.

“That’s why, based on industry feedback, we have developed a comprehensive and ambitious program of works as part of the continuous evolution of Green Star, called Green Star 2014. This aims to make Green Star more accessible and user-friendly, and better value for money.”

As part of this Green Star would be taken online, there would be a  new certification processes, fewer Green Star credits and “streamlining of Green Star into four rating tools – Design & As Built, Interiors, Performance and Communities – to make certification simple and straightforward.”

Robert Milagre said the performance tool encompasses a broad range of performance categories but the weighting of points is on energy, indoor environment quality and ongoing building management, accounting for 27 per cent, 18 per cent and 16 per cent of available credits, consecutively.

Certification is valid for three years but greenhouse gas emissions and potable water use data must be updated annually. The number of credits in the tool is around one third that of other Green Star tools and this, combined with online submissions, will substantially cut the amount of documentation required.

“The other major difference is the cost of providing the documentation,” says Milagre. “There won’t be any need to employ a consultant to put together documentation as this tool will use existing information. It would normally be a current employee who would submit the information online and it is a straight forward process.”

The GBCA is asking for expressions of interest from anyone interested in certification under Green Star – Performance by July 31. The pilot tool will be released in October.

Need for universal performance measurement

While measurement of building operations performance is on the increase, there is still one major gap – a global measurement, says Matthew Jessup, director of Flux Consultants.

Jessup recently expressed his frustration on the issue after US green building consultant and author Jerry Yudelson, published The World’s Greenest Buildings, which compares the operational performance of green buildings in Australia, the US and Western Europe.

While he applauded Yudelson for collecting and analysing the available data, Jessup says it can be misleading to compare data that is incomplete or that is compiled using different methods.

In the US the focus is on energy cost, while in Australia it is carbon emissions. Fuel and energy sources, such as gas, electricity, hydro-electricity and nuclear power, also can’t be directly compared as this does not take into account the variations in impact of generating power through these different methods.

Carbon emissions for hydro and nuclear power generation, for example, is minimal compared to electricity and gas.

“One kilowatt hour of gas is not equivalent to one kilowatt hour of electricity,” says Jessup.

“You can’t walk into the bank with US$100 and ask them to credit AU$100 to your account balance… exchange rates apply.  Similarly you can’t just add up kilowatt hours or megajoules, you need to convert them into a common metric like cost or CO2 equivalent.”

More importantly though Jessup would like to see NABERS break building energy use into various parts so that there is more transparency about where the usage occurs.

“Under NABERS it isn’t clear how many carparks or tenants are in a building. This can be misleading.

“It means that a building like 1 Bligh St has NABERS six stars while an old less efficient building can be five stars because it is not heavily tenanted and there’s not a lot of energy load on the building. There’s not much point in a rating if buildings aren’t treated fairly,” Jessup says.

“NABERS has been a market leader for 10 years but the market has now moved on and we need to segment the building using smart meters so that tenants can see exactly where the energy is being used.”

Green Star has been moving in this direction with the inclusion of a credit for smart meters.

The other critical issue in rating systems has been point chasing, says Jessup. This has resulted in technology being used for the sake of points rather than for operational gains.

A lot of buildings are layering systems to get extra points and the

controls guys have no chance of getting things right on day one,

let alone over the longer term. It is far too complex.

“A lot of buildings are layering systems such as VAV [variable air volume] and heat exchange to get extra points and the controls guys have no chance of getting things right on day one, let alone over the longer term. It is far too complex.

“I’m a big believer in simplicity and good passive design. In Singapore the government has introduced a scheme that encourages people to go beyond Platinum [the top rating under the Green Mark green building rating scheme] to try to break this cycle. It encourages people to look at the big picture of what they’re trying to achieve rather than getting caught up in points.”

The Barangaroo development is doing something along these lines with its climate positive framework, aiming for zero waste, carbon neutral and water positive development, Jessup says.

“We need a simple way of looking at the big issues. You can either ride the technology wave or snap the elastic band and get people to think differently and encourage innovation.”

PC Thomas, Team Catalyst

Combining different technologies doesn’t work

PC Thomas, director of Team Catalyst, says that overly complex technology, often with incompatible systems installed together, is hampering operational efficiency in buildings.

“There is a trend to use what we call hybrid design – that is combining traditional systems like VAV, under floor heating and chilled beam. In terms of physics it doesn’t make sense. The controls become terribly complex and it doesn’t add value.

“It shows that people don’t understand the fundamentals of how these systems work,” Thomas says.

Property owners often don’t allow enough

budget to ensure buildings are commissioned and run properly,

even for the first year.

With increasing refurbishment activity amongst second tier properties comes problems of lack of knowledge about what is involved, says Thomas. This often means property owners don’t allow enough budget to ensure buildings are commissioned and run properly, even for the first year.

“The big portfolio owners understand the need to allow a budget for the building tuning phase but second tier don’t. People are struggling with how expensive and difficult it is to get a building running effectively and they don’t think they need to do it.”

The key is to keep things simple, says Thomas, and get things right at design stage.

“In Australia we don’t spend money on getting the initial concept correct. This is where we should pay experts to get the concept done properly. Documentation is often woeful.”

Thomas is not sure where the new Green Star Performance tool will sit in the market, given that NABERS has operational performance pretty well covered but can see potential in the public building space where performance benchmarks are lacking.

Meanwhile his company is busy on some major refurbishment projects, mostly of A grade buildings but with some B grade on the horizon as well. The most recent project in Strawberry Hills in Sydney involved a complete refurbishment including a façade replacement.

“There is a lot of activity and it’s a mixed bag of building types,” says Thomas. “Our main challenge is getting people to understand they have to allow enough budget to keep the building operating efficiently after the refurbishment.”

20 June 2013 –

The post Performance: out with the bling, bring on the real deal appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

On the sounds of something breaking, real deals and raw deals

Did you hear that?

Something just snapped.

Sounds like patience. And maybe there’s a twang there from tolerance.

The wind industry gets it: they’ve decided they’ve been far too polite and defensive. Now it’s all out action and loud noises with the Act On Facts campaign to counter the paranoia spruiked by anti-wind and anti-renewable energy lobbyists. Those fragile souls with very sensitive hearing issues lining up in the Coalition camp to declare that wind energy is a crime against humanity had better get set for a battle.

So too the people who want to cap renewable energy. We’re looking at you Mr Abbott.

The coal industry certainly heard the snap.

It’s now activating its media management battalions and silent drones to declare war on those who would take away their rights to… take away the rights of others. Such as the right to clean air. Think Newcastle residents who had to watch the NSW Environment (non) Protection Authority insist that no way would it ask that coal trucks trundling through built-up areas be covered up and stop spraying the place with coal dust.

The coal industry, genius that it is (OK, rich that it is) has commissioned a report that has declared it’s not up to investors to pursue the public interest.

“Encouraging business people to take over the legitimate role of government is likely to encourage inferior economic performance as well as the emergence of a ‘democratic deficit’,” the report says.

Okay then, what’s the coal industry doing in Canberra with its hoards of lobbyists, and at every other level government?

Having afternoon tea down the rabbit hole, probably, and conferring with the other white rabbits about what happens when they take over the paddocks.

Twang.

If business doesn’t pursue a public interest, and what it does is against the public interest, what are we doing allowing it to roam free on this wild and beautiful land of ours?

Send them to China. The Chinese will quietly explain that when you can’t breathe the air in your capital cities then maybe it’s time to change the power source. For a start.

The coal industry is angry because people such as activist Bill McKibben who has just visited Australia has pointed out if investors can delay coal industry expansion by a few years, there’s a lot of coal that may never be economical to get out of the ground.

Ping.

Coal faith isn’t the only thing that’s snapped.

Sustainability advisor Sam Mostyn says enough of expecting others to do the heavy lifting.

It’s absolutely business’ role to shape the future, she said in a strong speech at this week’s Green Capital The Phoenix Effect forum.

She pointed to IMF boss Christine Lagarde who said that the goal of the private sector cannot just be about profit, but also to add value, create jobs and come up with new ideas to drive the economy forward.

Not genius. Common sense.

Women

Also among those who’ve had enough are women in the construction sector who say they are paid less than men for the same work.

• See Construction women facing pay gap

“The gender pay gap must be closed if the industry is to attract and retain the best and brightest women, said the National Association of Women in Construction’s chief executive officer Sheryle Moon.

She’s not alone. Quiet noises have been filtering through to The Fifth Estate on discrimination in the property sector too, with “toys for the boys” and poor performance in males rewarded while women are retrenched or demoted.

Energy efficiency: time’s up

In energy efficiency and performance there is a sense that the time for fooling around is finished.

We’ve had the green bling; we’ve had the glamour of the first green buildings and the heroics of fantastic design and innovation.

But the reality is that for ordinary property users – that’s you and me folks – daily life is about daily grind. And now we want our buildings to do the same.

Why should ordinary workers in a B-grade building walk in and feel like curling up on the desk and going to sleep because the air is so stale that you know your brain is going to switch off straight after lunch? Interrupted only by dreams of how to get out of there for good.

So enough of the shock of the new. Right now it’s about the “real deal”.

How much is this building going to cost me, the tenant, in energy bills each month – and in lost productivity? How many talented staff will politely decline my job offer?

And if I’ve got a self-managed superfund with a few million dollars to invest should I risk it in a building with a low NABERS rating? How much might it drain my fund for a retrofit in two or three years time when the rusty old aircon gives way?

Kerching.

The Green Building Council of Australia heard the change in mood.

It’s launching the Green Star – Performance rating tool, so you can measure a suite of elements that will either make your hard won savings work harder or see them dribble down the drain.

See Lynne Blundell’s story this issue, Performance: out with the bling, bring on the real deal, for another great report.

Health

The health department of Victoria and now its counterpart in NSW also heard the wake-up call.

The health system, crying out for more beds and more staff, is at the same time throwing away millions of dollars a year in energy waste. In the case of Victoria, an audit a year ago found that a potential 35 per cent of the yearly $70 million energy bill could be saved. That’s $24.5 million by our (solar powered) calculations.

See what the auditor said about the NSW health department, NSW Health audit report: too much energy waste; try harder

We haven’t read the Victorian report – it was said to be scathing – but in the NSW report it’s interesting that the auditors noted that among the reasons that energy savings were not made included that the pressure on management of systems and programs that needed to get priority.

It’s a salutary note. For most of us, it’s easy enough to see the benefits of rational choice, but it’s hard to change habits and implement change.

Maybe that’s why we have down-cycles. Under the weight of recession and some pain, the mind sure works out how to focus attention and make the necessary leaps in efficiency that seem way too hard when the chardonnay and chantilly beckon.

The post News from the front desk: Issue No 147 appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

Business and sustainability advisor Sam Mostyn

By Cameron Jewell

20 June 2013 — Influential business and sustainability advisor Sam Mostyn has used her keynote address to this week’s Green Capital forum to implore business to show leadership on sustainability.

The speech came as a report by a number of key business groups called on the government for action on climate change resilience, and a coal-industry backed report said that government inaction on climate change didn’t mean business should step in.

Mostyn’s address to the Green Capital forum The Phoenix Effect, which covered the emerging paradigms of business sustainability, said that business played a key role in progressing the sustainability narrative.

Mostyn said the sustainability narrative had come a long way, but that business leaders needed to stand up for what they believed in and voice their concerns.

She said the business community held much influence in shaping the national agenda when it came to action on sustainability, giving an example of a business roundtable on climate change that led to John Howard warming to the idea of putting a price on carbon.

While Mostyn was optimistic about a new resurgence of sustainability thinking after the “brick wall” of the GFC and a “terrible” political climate, she said it needed to be “tempered slightly with the realism about the responsibilities of leadership required right now”.

“I think our leadership has failed us, and failed a generation that’s arriving and saying, ‘We expect more of you’,” she said.

“The possibilities that we need to grab require great leadership. We are past the time where those with great influence and capacity can sit back and wait for others to transform our economies, or rely on governments to do the heavy lifting.

She said short-termism in politics was stunting government’s ability to respond to pressing issues, and that business had a key role to play in promoting a sustainable path forward.

Mostyn pointed to a recent speech by IMF boss Christine Lagarde’s speech that the goal of the private sector cannot just be about profit, but also to add value, create jobs and come up with new ideas to drive the economy forward.

Mostyn used the Australian army General David Morrison’s statement to the army on culture, which has gone viral on YouTube, to illustrate what great leadership was.

“It took an extreme event to collide with a great leader,” she said. “He set a tone for how change is possible.”

“He makes a number of incredible points. One is that everyone is responsible for the environment in which we operate. He’s using that in the context of the Australian Army, but I use that more generally. We’re all responsible for our environment.

“He talks about moral courage. He also makes a comment that’s not just related to the poor treatment of women. He just says very simply, ‘The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.’

“If I think about the sustainability community, and leadership in this community more broadly, we need lots more of us standing up on our boards, in chief executive rooms, in management committees, and just saying, ‘The standard of the current way in which we think about our economy is not good enough. It’s not valuing the things we know matter to our communities’.”

A war brewing on climate change leadership in business

At the same time as Mostyn’s speech, and in stark contrast, the coal industry released a report stating that business shouldn’t be showing any leadership when it comes to investment in coal.

The coal-industry funded report, Fossil Fuels: A Sound Investment in a Growing World, reviewed the recently released Unburnable Carbon: Australia’s carbon bubble report by Sydney-based The Climate Institute and London’s Carbon Tracker Initiative.

The coal industry report came to the conclusion that it wasn’t up to private investors to pursue policy goals, because it was the proper domain of government, and government inaction on climate policy was no reason for business to step in.

“Encouraging business people to take over the legitimate role of government is likely to encourage inferior economic performance,” the report said.

The report’s view that business should not engage with national policy issues “no matter how worthy these goals might be” might come as a surprise to the many businesses that can and do interject regularly into the policy domain, playing a vital role in governance.

Queensland premier Campbell Newman gave business leaders a bit more agency, imploring them to stand up against the “clandestine” groups asking business to divest from fossil fuel companies.

“Business has to be part of the debate,” he said at an Infrastructure Partnerships Australia lunch on Wednesday. “You have to stand up and be counted.”

This week did mark the launch of a group of businesses joining the debate and voicing their concern on climate change. The Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience and Safer Communities – which includes Westpac, Investa, Optus, the Australian Red Cross, IAG and Munich RE – released a report, Building our Nation’s Resilience to Natural Disasters, which showed that the government is only investing $50 million a year on mitigation measures to improve resilience while $560 million is being spent per year on recovery measures.

The joint CEO statement said, “As business leaders representing a large and diverse cross-section of the Australian economy, along with the Australian Red Cross, an auxiliary to government, we believe making communities safer and more resilient to natural disasters is of national importance”.

Head to Green Capital for more information on business sustainability.

The post Sam Mostyn: business leaders must make a sustainability stand appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

20 June 2013 —

The first of the seven planned Chinese pilot emission trading schemes, in Shenzhen, is set to start operation in mid-June 2013. While China has been indirectly pricing carbon for years, this scheme will be its first mandatory carbon market.

Second largest emissions trading scheme in the world

Pilot emission trading schemes are planned to start this year in Beijing, Chongqing, Guangdong, Hubei, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin.

These pilots are expected to cover around 700 million tonnes of CO2-e by 2014, which is a fraction of China’s total emissions, yet are still very significant. By comparison, Australia’s carbon price covers around 380 million tonnes, California’s 165 million tonnes and Europe’s 2.1 billion tonnes. China plans to implement a national scheme around 2016 based on the lessons learned from the pilot schemes.

China is implementing a range of policies to address climate change, energy security and air pollution. If projections are accurate, these policies since 2005 will deliver a reduction in emissions of 4.5 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2020. This would be the largest single absolute reduction for any country in the history of action on climate change, and would equivalent of closing 1,000 500MW coal-fired power stations for a year.

Note also that China’s unabated appetite for coal is overstated. China has been the world’s largest investor in coal over the last decade but the nation’s energy use is undergoing significant change. In 2011 coal plant investment was less than half of what it was in 2005. Inefficient coal generation have been progressive closed and last year coal consumption grew only 2.5 per cent compared to nearly 12 per cent in 2011.

Renewables energy accounted for over 19 per cent of generation in 2012 and combined with nuclear, accounted for over 90 per cent of all electricity generation growth last year.

Spotlight on Shenzhen

Shenzhen is one of the China’s Special Economic Zones, located next to Hong Kong. It is home to around 11 million permanent residents. The region is seeking too to build an advanced carbon finance centre. In 2011, its GDP was around $178 billion and per capita incomes were around $17,000.

Total emissions are estimated to be around 83 million tonnes in 2010 (compared to around 570 million in Australia).

Rules will differ between the pilot schemes to allow China to experiment with different emission trading scheme designs. Shenzhen has committed to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy by 21 per cent below 2010 levels by 2015. Like the schemes in other major economics, Shenzhen’s market has an absolute emission limit. This is around 32 million tonnes. This distinguishes it and other schemes from New Zealand’s emission market or the Coalition’s Emission Reduction Fund, which do not have a regulated cap on emissions.

The scheme will cover all companies with emissions over 20,000 tonnes of CO2-e and around 40 per cent of total emissions. It covers 26 sectors, including electricity and natural gas, water supply and industrial manufacturing.

Initially emission permits will be allocated to companies for free but this will be progressively reduced through time and income from the carbon price to be used to support the development of new carbon reduction technologies and projects.

Companies that pollute more than they are allowed will have to buy credits from those that reduce emissions below their targets. Companies will be charged three times the market price for each tonne of CO2 they emit over their cap if they fail to deliver enough credits. It is unclear at this point whether carbon prices for traded units will be public in the short-term.

Reasons for action

Chinese officials have cited numerous reasons for their climate action, including an effort to build energy security, reduce air pollution, foster new industries and contribute to global emission reductions.

China’s significant investment in clean energy, for instance, has helped the emerging economy leapt ahead of countries like the United States in its ranking among the G20 nations in its ability to compete in a global low carbon economy. This year China ranked 3rd, up from 7th last year. If China had not increased its clean energy investments, it would be in 8th place. See more on the G20 rankings here: www.climateinstitute.org.au/lcci

Renewable energy in particular has had exponential growth. From having virtually no industry in 2005, China now has the largest installed capacity of wind power in the world and is the world’s largest producer of solar modules.

China is now the world’s largest investor in renewable energy with around $65 billion invested in 2012. Between 2009 and 2011, China invested more money in renewable energy than it did in coal fired generation.

Is it enough?

Despite China’s recent efforts under current energy projections, emissions and coal use will keep growing until at least 2020. This is not inconsistent with a world seeking to avoid a 2oC increase in global temperature as long as emissions peak by around this time.

Visualising China

The Climate Institute Creative Fellow and professional photographer Michael Hall travelled around China recently, documenting the impacts and opportunities of climate change. A photo essay of his work can be found at www.climateinstitute.org.au/chinas-changing-climate.html

The post China to introduce emission trading schemes appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

20 June 2013 —

And the gender pay gap must be closed if the industry is to attract and retain the best and brightest women, says the National Association of Women in Construction.

Chief executive officer Sheryle Moon said men were frequently paid more than women.

“While the common excuse for this 17.7 per cent pay gap is that women take time out of their careers to be carers, the truth is that the pay gap is established from the moment a woman commences her career,” she said.

“A study by Graduate Careers Australia released earlier this year showed the average gap in starting salaries for graduates is $5000, and that the pay gap for graduates in the building industry is by far the worst.

“How do we explain to talented, educated and skilled young women that they can expect to earn $9000 less than their similarly qualified male colleagues?”

Ms Moon said a discussion paper, What women want in a construction career, released in April, explores how to boost the participation of women in the construction industry.

“We know that attracting and retaining more talented women requires a change in the way our industry is structured,” she said.

“It means encouraging flexibility, embracing diversity and investing in attraction. It also means ensuring that women receive equal pay. Closing the gender pay gap should be an industry priority.”

The post Construction women facing pay gap appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

The theme is “Valuing our Coastal Zone, Planning our Future, What’s the big picture?”

The three-day event includes plenary sessions, concurrent sessions, field trips which address some of the local coastal, estuary and marine management issues, networking events and the annual NSW Coastal Management Awards.

Details: http://www.coastalconference.com/

The post NSW Coastal Conference looks to the future appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

By Cameron Jewell

20 June 2013 — South Australia had the highest average NABERS ratings in the country, according to recently released Commercial Building Disclosure statistics. NSW came out second, trumping rival Victoria, which was below the national average of three stars.

Under the Commercial Building Disclosure program, energy efficiency information is required to be provided to the government when commercial office space of 2000 square metres or more is offered for sale or lease.

Statistics from the first full year of Commercial Building Disclosure show that buildings are making a concerted effort to boost their NABERS ratings, though most of the market suffers from poor lighting efficiency.

The national mean NABERS rating of buildings covered by the legislation was three stars. Of the 874 buildings liable to report, most had a 4-star rating, but the average was dragged down by 98 energy-inefficient buildings with 0-star ratings.

When NABERS was graphed against net lettable area, the most common rating was 4.5 stars, reflecting the fact that larger buildings generally have higher NABERS ratings.

Mean NABERS energy ratings per state saw South Australia out in front with an average NABERS rating of 3.57. NSW was next with a rating 3.23 ahead of Victoria, whose average was below the national average on 2.85.

Director of WT Sustainability Stephen Hennessy told The Fifth Estate that CBD was driving buildings to perform better.

“When Commercial Building Disclosure started the mean NABERS rating was 2.5, so there’s a real push to increase performance thanks to the legislation,” he said.

He said that the number of ratings had “more than doubled” since becoming mandatory.

The big end of town was able to get their house in order long before mandatory disclosure, he said, but buildings that didn’t care to improve previously or did not have the resources to do so now had to declare poor performance, “warts and all”.

Hennessy said there was a risk for some tenants being associated with poor-performing buildings, including government clients, large companies with corporate social responsibility requirements, and those with sustainability interests.

Lighting was singled out as being particularly poor, and another risk for tenants.

The tenancy lighting assessment looked at the nominal lighting power density, a measure of lighting efficiency. Close to 36 per cent of NLA was rated “poor”, with more than 15 watts per square metre needed to light areas.

“From a tenant’s point of view this is a powerful bit of information,” said Hennessy. “It’s an area of the building tenants cannot control, so having efficient lighting is critical.”

“In my office, we have lighting that illuminates to 320 lux. Our lighting load is 5.8 watts per square metre. Some buildings have offices where lighting is meeting the standard but using four times the energy.”

He said tenants would not want to be locked into using three to four times the energy for lighting as others, and that CBD was a good tool for prospective tenants to compare leasing options.

See the full statistics here.

The post CBD first year results: South Australia wins appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

Susan Thompson

By Donna Kelly

20 June 2013 — Halfway through day three of the 6^th Making Cities Liveable Conference, Susan Thompson, director of the Healthy Built Environments Program at the University of New South Wales, turned off the lights and raised the full length blinds to let natural light into one of the five function rooms.

Sustainability in action.

With the NSW’s Ministry of Health’s Strategy and Partnerships manager Claudine Lyons, Ms Thompson’s topic for the three-day conference, from 17 to 20 November, was “The Healthy Built Environments Program: Working together to break down health and planning silos”.

The Healthy Built Environments Program is an initiative of the UNSW Built Environment started in 2010, with funding of $1.5 million over five years from the NSW Ministry of Health, which brings the built environment and health together.

Ms Thompson said the program had three main areas of focus including research, education and workforce development and leadership and advocacy.

She said the program’s vision was that built environments be planned, designed and developed to promote and protect health.

This was done by built environments getting people active, connecting and strengthening communities and providing healthy food options, she said.

Ms Thompson said healthy built environments was a rapidly growing field and there was a need to focus on partnership building “well beyond the health sector”.

The University had also instigated new courses including healthy planning for undergraduates and healthy built environments for post graduates.

There were also pro bono places available for New South Wales health professionals, Ms Thompson said.

Meanwhile, Ms Lyons said there were still many challenges in creating healthy built environments.

“There are multiple policy levers and actors and sometimes it’s hard to know which lever to push,” she said.

“And there are difficulties getting everyone on the agenda, everyone has a different view and sometimes you feel like you are vying for attention.”

Ms Lyons said the Westminster system of government was also outdated and difficult to work with because “transport does transport and planning does planning”.

“There is no department for healthy built environments.

“And it is still cutting edge – it’s still way out there.

“We are not seen as a key stakeholder – and there are so many health concerns – which are priorities?”

Ms Lyons said there was also a medicalised perception of the term health, along with health being dropped in the same area as human services while planning was linked with infrastructure, economics and transport.

There was a yawning gap inbetween, she said.

“There is a need for more collaboration within the health sector to share knowledge and strengthen influence,” she said.

Ms Lyons said there was also a need for Australian specific research to inform practice and policy, an interdisciplinary alliance, more education and for the healthy built environment message to get out to a diverse audience of policy makers and practitioners.

Ending the talk, Ms Thompson said healthy built environments had just achieved a major victory – having “health” included as an objective in the new planning legislation for New South Wales.

“We couldn’t believe it,” she said.

The post Bridging the gap between health and built environments appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

20 June 2013 —

The three development applications lodged by Lend Lease include a student accommodation building, a 25,000 square metre commercial building and a residential building with retail and community space.

The Haymarket is part of the NSW Government’s project to revitalise a 20-hectare area of Darling Harbour.

The design proposals by Denton Corker Marshall, AJC and Lend Lease, with overall integration with adjacent Darling Harbour Live concepts by Ken Maher from Hassell, have been inspired by the urban grain of the city, the unique heritage of Haymarket and Chinatown, and local landmarks like the Powerhouse Museum.

The neighbourhood will include a mix of retail shops and dining areas. In terms of offices, the south-western edge of Darling Harbour has become a centre for media, technology and IT industries, with Lend Lease saying businesses from these sectors are likely to be attracted to the new space. The Haymarket also includes an area for a proposed IQ hub to support these industries by providing purpose-built, low-cost workspaces to encourage start-up, viable ventures and social initiatives.

“We are excited that these detailed DAs are now on public exhibition,” said Lend Lease’s general manager development Gavin Biles. “We’ve consulted extensively with the local community and stakeholders and have considered their feedback in developing our designs. We welcome further input through the formal planning process to help us get this project right for Sydney.”

The plans are on public exhibition by the Department of Planning and Infrastructure for 45 days until 2 August 2013.

For information on how to view and comment on the designs visit planning.nsw.gov.au

The post Darling Harbour resi and commercial neighbourhood designs on display appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

Speaking at the workshop as part of a Victorian Government Super Trade Mission to South East Asian, Premier Denis Napthine said Victoria presented a strong and compelling message to the Indonesian Government that our local industry could help deliver Indonesia’s pressing infrastructure needs.

Dr Napthine said Victoria had long been recognised as a global leader in the planning and delivery of PPPs and was well placed to provide expertise to the Indonesian market.

“The Indonesian Government is delivering an ambitious PPP agenda, worth a total of US$50 billion to 2014,” Dr Napthine said.

“The Victorian Coalition Government will assist by partnering with leading Victorian businesses and the University of Melbourne to train Indonesian policy makers in PPP delivery.

“Securing this partnership to train Indonesian and work with Government officials is an important first step to building a long-term partnership with the Indonesian Government on infrastructure delivery.

“This collaboration will lead to real business opportunities for Victorian planning, construction, financing, legal and management businesses,” Dr Napthine said.

A number of Victorian and Indonesian infrastructure experts attended the workshop, including Sir Rod Eddington, Chairmen of Infrastructure Australia, Paul Finn from ANZ and Dennis Cliche from ConnectEast .

Dr Napthine also met with  the Vice President of Indonesia, Dr Boediono and senior Indonesian officals to discuss opportunities for Victoria and Indonesia to develop partnerships through infrastructure delivery.

“Indonesia is the largest economy in South East Asia and its gross domestic product has grown at a rate of more than six per cent per annum for the past decade,” Dr Napthine said.

“The Coalition Government believes Victorian businesses can support and be part of this growth by adding expertise in areas including transport systems, health infrastructure and leading edge green building technologies.

Victorian firms are keen to grow their businesses into Indonesia and I am pleased to have assisted them, Dr Napthine said.

The Premier’s Super Trade Mission is the largest ever to visit South East Asia from Australia, with approximately 300 firms and 450 delegates participating in more than 1500 business matching meetings.

The post Premier announces new Victoria-Indonesia infrastructure partnership appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

By Cameron Jewell

20 June 2013 — Property owners with trigen systems in their basements could be inching closer to connection to the grid if a draft determination from the Australian Energy Market Commission due on June 27 finds in their favour.

A rule change request was put forward by the Property Council of Australia, ClimateWorks and Seed Advisory. It follows agitation from property owners who have trigen or cogeneration systems onsite, but which produce more power than required by the building, making them unfeasible to run. Selling electricity to the grid would change the economic equation and produce more low emissions energy.

Submissions to the review have been made by the Green Building Council of Australia, the City of Sydney, City of Melbourne, Origin Energy, The Energy Networks Association and SP Ausnet.

Under the current rules, there is a lack of certainty over whether an application to connect a co/trigeneration system to the grid would be successful, what the timeframes for consideration would be, and overall cost of connection.

The proponents of the rule change said that the terms of connection agreements are “onerous, one-sided and not negotiable”, and the rules needed to be changed to make for a more efficient, unambiguous system.

The rule changes proposed include:

• Providing an automatic right of connection to the grid and standard access terms
• Enabling embedded generators a right to export electricity to the grid
• Allowing distributors to charge an optional fee-for-service to promote collaboration with proponents during the connection process
• Obliging distributors to publish annual network reports identifying where capacity is limited

“This rule change request reduces unnecessary barriers to the adoption of cogeneration and encourages investment by providing lower costs and better investment returns,” the submission said.

The benefits could include:

• reduced connection costs for current and prospective proponents and distributors
• lower payback periods on low carbon and renewable energy investments
• a boost to adaptation and innovation in the electricity market
• enhanced economic and energy efficiency and productivity
• the potential to support adaptation to a low carbon economy
• reduced demand on the electricity network, especially peak demand
• the potential to lower escalating electricity prices for businesses and households

Submissions to the AEMC on the proposal were received from a number of stakeholders, including the Green Building Council of Australia, the City of Sydney, City of Melbourne and Origin Energy.

GBCA said it supported changes to the rules that would bring a more consistent, Australia-wide approach to connecting embedded energy generators to the grid, however some of its member were concerned that excluding embedded generators from network augmentation costs may result in negative long-term consequences for the energy network.

Origin Energy, which acquired trigeneration company Cogent, said it “broadly supported” the recommended solutions. However, it was concerned about whether amending the connections framework to address embedded generation could give rise to a problem for large scale connections.

City of Melbourne’s director city planning and infrastructure Geoff Lawler said building owners and developers had identified long timeframes, uncertain costs and lack of clarity around technical requirements as significant barriers, which had delayed projects or prevented them from proceeding.

The City of Sydney, which recently dropped its trigen plans citing pricing and regulatory barriers, said the impacts on embedded generators when exporting was not allowed undermined the economics and carbon abatement potential of projects.

Distributors were not so supportive, however.

The Energy Networks Association – the peak body for the transmission and distribution networks – said there were genuine technical challenges in integrating distributed generation into what has until recently been a system of centralised power generation and one-way flows.

It said there would be particular challenges for each project, and therefore recommended nationally consistent technical standards but not rigid rules on connection applications.

SP Ausnet agreed that each connection was unique, and therefore standardised information and access requirements were not are not a practical solution.

Ausgrid said it didn’t agree there was a gap in the regulatory framework for connecting embedded generation, and it did not support the proposed changes in their current form.

After the draft determination is released, submissions will again be sought before a final determination is made.

The post Trigen and connection to the grid: decision due soon appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

By Tina Perinotto

20 June 2013 — An audit of NSW Health has found energy bills soared by nearly 50 per cent in three years. Yet little had been done to capture potential savings, prompting the Green Building Council to call for greener health care buildings.

It’s a finding that could jolt the energy efficiency industry into action. A similarly “scathing” audit report on Victoria’s health department a year ago found that energy bills of about $70 million could be shaved by 35 per cent. There are now plans for 27 tenders by 2018 for work to redress the issue, industry sources in Victoria said.

• See list of tenders on the Victorian government’s procurement website

The NSW report, issued early this month by the Audit Office of NSW,  found some of the increases were because of rising electricity costs, and that costs were expected to rise again by another 50 per cent in the next five years.

Between 2008–09 and 2011–12, energy prices increased significantly and NSW Health building energy cost increased by 47 per cent or nearly $39 million – from  $81.8 million to $120.4 million, the report said.

It also found a failure to implement energy savings programs that could be funded through the Treasury Loan Fund.

Other reasons included the 2011 organisational restructure and other priorities of the LHDs, which “delayed the development of NSW Health’s environmental sustainability strategy and local plans”.

There was some limited good news. The Audit Office found that the department had reduced its energy use by two per cent despite increased hospital activity and that it had invested in cost effective energy savings initiatives.

But “It did not meet it’s remission reduction target in 2010 and, at the current rate, is unlikely to meet its 2013-14 target,” the report said.

The conclusion was that “NSW Health has not managed its building energy use as well as it intended.”

GBCA chief operating officer Robin Mellon urged the state government to implement sustainable building policies which would not only save energy but improve health care outcomes for patients.

“More money spent on energy means less money available for primary care,” he said.

“We have solid evidence that Green Star-rated buildings emit around one third of the greenhouse gas emissions and use one third of the electricity when compared with the average Australian building – whether that’s an office, a school or a hospital.

“While hospitals are notorious energy-guzzlers, green buildings are cheaper to operate because smart, sustainable design conserves energy and water. They also enable better patient care, reduce the length of stay required in hospital and decrease staff absences and turnover.

“A number of governments around Australia, most notably in South Australia, understand that Green Star-rated healthcare facilities are more efficient, cost-effective long-term assets that require significantly fewer taxpayers’ dollars to operate.

“SA Health achieved Australia’s first Green Star rating for a hospital – the Flinders Medical Centre – and is currently seeking ratings for the New Royal Adelaide Hospital and the redevelopment of Lyell McEwin Hospital.

“Despite the NSW Government investing $4.7 billion in hospital redevelopments in rural and regional areas, no NSW Health projects have been registered to achieve Green Star ratings.”

Mr Mellon said the GBCA was keen to work with the department to consider how the rating tools could help reduce energy costs, meet the emissions reduction target of 11 per cent, and improve patient care.

However the department piloting specific benchmarks for the thermal performance of new hospitals, the report said.

“NSW Health requires its new facilities valued at over $10 million to undergo the Green Star process and to achieve a minimum four star rating.

“However, independent certification to that rating is not required and the rating does not guarantee optimal thermal performance of buildings. Also, the required post-evaluation of new buildings to ensure they operate as per the design specifications is not applied consistently.”

Key findings in the report included that:

• Between 2008–09 and 2011–12,  NSW Health improved its building energy use despite increases in the number of operations and bed days of over eight per cent and nearly two per cent respectively.
• NSW Health reduced its emissions by two per cent, from 921,253 tonnes of CO2-e (that is, carbon dioxide equivalent) to 906,593 tonnes of CO2-e and energy use by two per cent, from 4.6 million gigajoules to 4.5 million gigajoules.
• However, NSW Health did not meet its 2010–11 interim emissions reduction target of 817,000 tonnes of CO2-e. Emissions were 15 per cent above target. This was because only six out of 62 initiatives identified in Energy Savings Action Plans were reported as being implemented and investment in cost-effective energy saving initiatives did not deliver sufficient emissions reduction.
• NSW Health is also unlikely to meet its 2013–14 target.
• While NSW Health’s strategy includes emissions reduction targets for building energy use, it does not include KPIs and targets for reducing energy use and cost, and improving energy efficiency.
• Between 2008-09 and 2011-12, energy prices increased significantly and NSW Health building energy cost increased by 47 per cent or nearly $39 million.

Findings on NSW Health’s plans to improve its building energy use include:

• NSW Health’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy released in 2012 provides a broad strategic framework for managing building energy use. It identifies the priority sites and includes a series of emissions reduction targets through to 2019–20 (at five per cent below the year 2000 emissions level).
• The strategy was an important step, but further work is needed in some critical areas to guide detailed planning at local health district (LHD level. This includes a method to account for the impact of new facilities on overall emissions, KPIs, targets and benchmarks, guidance on investment decisions, including system-wide bundling of projects at whole-of-health, and the uptake of cleaner/renewable energies, an energy efficiency investment program and guidance for managing energy demand and influencing behaviour to reduce energy use.
• Current management arrangements and governance structures do not always encourage investment in energy efficiency. In particular LHDs and energy managers receive limited support and training, increases in energy bills are covered through budget supplementations irrespective of performance, LHDs have no internally allocated seed funding to cover the cost of energy audits, the monetary threshold to seek loans from the Treasury Loan Fund limits investment choices, the Treasury Loan Fund processes are lengthy and complex, there is no permanent prequalified panel of energy performance contractors to select from and there is no flexibility in using and repaying loans from the Treasury Loan FunOur analysis showed that it has improved energy efficiency, but this has not been enough to compensate for increases in costs. Between 2008–09 and 2011-12, energy use per separation reduced by nearly ten per cent, per bed day reduced by four per cent, per full-time equivalent employee reduced by over nine per cent.

• NSW Health building energy cost per separation increased by over 36 per cent, per bed day increased by over 44 per cent and per FTE increased by nearly 37 per cent.
• Analysis also showed significant variations in energy efficiency across LHDs and the top 10 hospitals. Some of these variations reflect buildings of different design, size and age, in different climate zones and running different services. Some will also reflect LHDs and hospitals with better energy management than others. The scale of the variations suggests there is scope for further improvement.
• The development of benchmarks and evaluations of energy efficiency of hospitals are in early stages. The Office of Environment and Heritage has developed and piloted a draft energy benchmarking tool for existing NSW hospitals based on the National Australian Built Environment Rating System methodology, but further work is required to finalise it.
• NSW Health is also piloting specific benchmarks for the thermal performance of new hospitals. NSW Health requires its new facilities valued at over $10 million to undergo the Green Star process and to achieve a minimum four star rating. However, independent certification to that rating is not required and the rating does not guarantee optimal thermal performance of buildings. Also, the required post-evaluation of new buildings to ensure they operate as per the design specifications is not applied consistently.

Key recommendations include:

• minimum energy efficiency performance standards for technologies, plant and equipment used in public hospitals
• provision of seed funding for energy audits
• bundling energy efficiency improvements at an appropriate level to maximise value
• an investment program with financing options ranging from the use of recurrent budgets to large scale capital investment outside the Treasury Loan Fund
• phasing in investment in renewable energy where cost-effectivedevelop KPIs and targets for reducing energy cost and use, and improving energy efficiency
•  develop and start implementing a strategy to strengthen the role of the Sustainability Unit

The Ministry of Health should by June 2014:

• Review the NSW Health Engineering services and Sustainable Development Guidelines TS11 and include a requirement for all new and refurbished facilities to: have their energy and emissions baselines determine; use the benchmarks once finalised for monitoring performance; be independently certified to a minimum four star Green Star rating; have a budget for energy efficiency in initial project costing; implement evaluations of thermal performance at 18 months post-occupancy
• Work with LHDs to provide energy managers with a budget for minor energy saving initiatives, as well as support and training.
• Link any budget supplementations provided to LHDs and relevant specialty health networks for increases in energy costs to their performance in managing building energy use.
• Have all small sites, including franchise accounts, on state contracts or similar contracts to secure competitive energy prices and electronic access to data from providers.
• To better measure, monitor and report on performance, the Ministry of Health should require LHDs and relevant specialty health networks to report annually to the Ministry of Health on progress against their implementation plans
• Review performance in managing building energy use at each interim target.
• Develop quality assurance procedures for data on building energy use.

The Ministry of Health should by June 2014:

• Work with the Office of Environment and Heritage to develop a benchmarking tool for NSW hospitals and adopt it for monitoring performance.
• Give LHDs, relevant specialty health networks and hospitals access to performance information so they can compare their performance to others and set improvement targets in their implementation plans .
• Start progressively to monitor and report: trends in energy use, cost and efficiency on a rolling three years basis, including in annual reports; on the performance of existing, new and refurbished facilities against respective KPIs, targets and benchmarks
• Review the extent to which sub-meters are being used for monitoring energy use in hospitals to identify gaps and develop funding options.
• Include energy management in chief executives performance agreements with the Ministry of Health.

To encourage investment in energy efficiency, NSW Treasury should by December 2013:

• Review, jointly with the Office of Environment and Heritage, the administrative arrangements for the Treasury Loan Fund to secure its continuation.
• Assist NSW Health to identify appropriate financing options for energy efficiency initiatives, including the existing Treasury Loan Fund, and ways to secure such funds.
• Assist NSW Health with approval processes to seek authorisation to draw down and spend outstanding loans from the Treasury Loan Fund in new financial years.
• Introduce flexible loan repayment options for the Treasury Loan Fund, such as delayed loan repayments where justified.

To encourage greater investment in energy efficiency and benchmarking of performance, the Office of Environment and Heritage should by December 2013:

• Review, jointly with NSW Treasury, the administrative arrangements for the Treasury Loan Fund to secure its continuation
• Allocate resources to a seed funding program for projects which could be potentially funded from the Treasury Loan Fund
• Review the administrative rules to enhance successful access to loans from the Treasury Loan Fund, including risk-based assessment and approval processes.
• Simplify key Treasury Loan Fund application documents and administrative processes Provide guidance and training on energy management
• Establish, in consultation with the Department of Finance and Services, a permanent panel of prequalified energy performance contractors, including contractors with expertise in health settings
• Require agencies to apply for loans from the Treasury Loan Fund for energy savings projects at set regular intervals, and introduce time standards for finalising the assessment of compliant applications.

To encourage greater investment in energy efficiency and benchmarking of performance, the Office of Environment and Heritage should by June 2014:

• Finalise the energy efficiency benchmarking tool for NSW hospitals

NOTE

The Treasury Loan Fund was set up in 1998 to provide low interest loans to general government budget dependent agencies to implement cost-effective energy and water efficiency projects. The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage administers and assesses agencies’ applications for loans from the fund to invest in those projects, and recommends suitable projects to NSW Treasury for approval to access the fund

Conclusion

The Audit Office said that NSW Health had reduced its energy use by two per cent despite increases in hospital activity and had invested in cost-effective energy savings initiatives.

But it “did not meet its emissions reduction target in 2010–11 and, at the current rate, was unlikely to meet its 2013–14 target”.

“We conclude that NSW Health has not managed its building energy use as well as it intended.

“Over the same period, energy prices have increased significantly. Expenditure on energy in NSW Health increased by 47 per cent (nearly $39 million), despite a two per cent reduction in energy use.

“This increase was considerably faster than the increase in total health expenditure and activity. The price of energy over the next five years is expected to continue to rise. This makes the case for investment in energy efficiency measures stronger than ever.

“There are significant variations in energy efficiency across LHDs and hospitals. Some of these variations reflect buildings of different design, size and age, in different climate zones and running different services. Some will also reflect LHDs and hospitals with better energy management than others. The scale of the variations suggests there is scope for further improvement.

“The 2011 organisational restructure and other priorities of the LHDs delayed the development of NSW Health’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy and local plans. There has been progress recently. The strategy was completed in 2012; the LHD implementation plans are due in 2012-13.

“In the absence of a strategy and plans up until recently, energy efficiency measures have been limited in scope, and the available government investment funds have not been fully utilised. While it is too early to comment on the implementation plans being prepared by the LHDs, we can say that more work is needed in some critical areas if the strategy and plans are to translate into sustained improvement in energy efficiency.

“This work includes:

• an energy efficiency investment program
• more technical support to LHDs
• the right incentives to invest and manage energy costs.

“We conclude that planning to improve building energy use has not been as effective as it could be, so far. NSW Health reporting and evaluation of energy use and energy efficiency are under-developed. As a result, KPIs, targets and benchmarks are needed to identify scope for improvement and to monitor progress.”

The post NSW Health audit report: too much energy waste; try harder appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

Newcastle, a winner in the 2013 state budget

By staff reporters

19 June 2013 – New South Wales treasurer Mike Baird said the state was in recovery mode in his budget speech on Tuesday. He also made commitments to infrastructure, including rail; to the revitalisation of Newcastle; and funding of more than $20 million to implement  planning reforms.

But the good news comes amide the  recent welter of cuts to public service numbers including at the Office of Environment and Heritage, which manages environmental programs, previously reported in The Fifth Estate, and union concerns that front line services will also be cut.

Following are key highlights from the treasurer’s speech:

 The Budget has been set in the context of a fragile global economic outlook.

The data around us paints a sombre picture. The weak domestic economy has seen most states register zero or negative economic growth. To the north, Queensland is facing a $5 billion Budget deficit, while the best Federal Labor can manage, after a year of promises to the contrary, is a Budget $20 billion in the red. These examples show we cannot be complacent.

However, the backdrop makes even more remarkable the positive economic signs emerging in NSW. The Budget revises economic growth in 2012-13 up by one half of a percentage point, to 2.5 per cent.

Employment growth has been revised up by three-quarters of a percentage point to 1.5 per cent.

After lagging well behind the pack for a decade, NSW has moved back towards the lead. We have the highest jobs increase and, in the year to March, State demand grew faster than any state except Queensland.

NSW employment has increased by 128,900 in two years.

Housing is also on the rebound: in the April quarter, private building approvals were 26.5 per cent higher than a year ago and 14.1 per cent above the decade average. We are boosting the supply of new housing in the State and thereby delivering much-needed growth to one of the key drivers of the State’s economy.

Balance sheet

The $5 billion was received less than three weeks ago from the long-term lease of Port Botany and Port Kembla.

Net debt in June next year will be $15.7 billion, about $4.8 billion less than predicted in last year’s Budget. Indeed, net debt in 2017 will now be lower than last year’s estimate for 2014.

Newcastle

The government will proceed to a long-term lease of the Port of Newcastle, the largest coal port in the world, subject to a scoping study. The success of Port Botany and Port Kembla dictates that we act now.

Should the transaction be successful, $340 million of the proceeds will go towards the revitalisation of Newcastle.

This will be more than a revitalisation: it will be the reinvention of Newcastle as a modern city. The removal of the railway line between Wickham and Newcastle, as previously announced, will renew Hunter Street and return the city’s harbour to the embrace of its people.

The heavy rail service will be replaced by light rail. Subject to the completion of a business case, this will form the beginning of a light rail service linking the Newcastle CBD with surrounding suburbs.

In the 30-year period of the opening up of the Australian economy to international competition, perhaps no other city has been asked to make more painful adjustments than Newcastle. Today, Newcastle’s time has come.

Infrastructure

Over the four years to 2016-17, the infrastructure program will total $59.7 billion.

Reduced spending in the electricity sector to assist in putting downward pressure on electricity prices, but increasing spend in the general government sector, with money into roads, public transport, hospitals and schools.

State funding over the next four years averages $9 billion, an increase of 39 per cent over the four years to 2012-13.

Rail grants for infrastructure over the forward estimates of almost $10 billion.

North West Rail Link expected to cost $8.3 billion, with trains running in 2019.

The Government has embraced INSW’s key recommendation, the 33 kilometre WestConnex project. The recent Ports transaction has secured the funding. The Government has committed $1.8 billion across the forward estimates, including more than $100 million in 2013-14 to the WestConnex project.

A private sector plan to address the missing link, between the F3 and the M2, has progressed to Stage 3 under the Government’s unsolicited proposals assessment process. The Budget funds the Stage 3 assessment and reserves in Restart NSW a contribution of up to $400 million. If this proposal is able to proceed, it will deliver a continuous motorway between the Central Coast and Hunter and Western and South Western Sydney.

Housing

More than $300 million will be allocated for priority infrastructure to accelerate the delivery of new homes and extend the first homebuyers scheme to further boost supply.

There will be $141 million for 11 critical projects to support the delivery of up to 42,900 new homes in Sydney and the Hunter region.

This builds on the $181 million allocated in last year’s Budget across 10 projects to support 76,000 new homes. In total, this will help to deliver almost 120,000 new homes across the state.

There will be $99 million to assist councils to fund the gap between the amount developers contribute in infrastructure levies, and what it actually costs to build the infrastructure necessary to increase housing supply. Over 20,000 homes in The Hills and Blacktown communities are among those which will benefit from the scheme.

A further $70 million has been allocated to upgrade Old Wallgrove Road, which will unlock 1200 hectares of land in the Western Sydney Employment Area, supporting jobs close to homes in new growth areas.

Planning

$20 million towards implementing a new planning system.

See our separate story on this

Transport

The Budget provides a major boost to transport:

• $4.1 billion over four years for the North West Rail Link, with tunnel boring machines due to be in the ground next year
• $900 million this year for new Waratah trains and $142 million this year for light rail
• funding for roads infrastructure upgrades needed to support a growing Central Coast, including construction to upgrade Wyong Road and the Central Coast Highway at West Gosford.

 Education

Capital spending of $530 million for five new public schools on the Lower North Shore, at Spring Farm, The Ponds, Strathfield and Crows Nest.

Regional NSW

• over four years, there is $4.4 billion for the Pacific Highway and $735 million for the Princes Highway
• of the $1.2 billion health capital works upgrades, almost a third will be spent on health facilities in the regions – in Bega, in Kempsey, in Wollongong, in Port Macquarie, in Dubbo, in Lismore
• Restart NSW is funding $120 million for the Resources for Regions program to deliver infrastructure for communities affected by mining activities
• the fund is also providing a $135 million contribution over four years towards Bridges for the Bush, a program for replacing and upgrading 17 bridges in regional NSW

See media Key services will be hit: unions, in The Sydney Morning Herald

The post NSW budget highlights appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

The property owners group and JLL, through the latter’s upstream sustainability consultancy, currently provide two of the UK’s largest environmental benchmarking initiatives for property investors. By joining their databases, a publicly available, asset-specific operational benchmark of environmental performance for commercial property will be created, based on the largest dataset in the UK, BBP reports.  Read the whole story

The post JJL and Better Buildings Partnership to work on enviro benchmarking system appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

Planning minister Brad Hazzard

By Cameron Jewell

19 June 2013 — Industry bodies have welcomed news of increased funding for the NSW government’s new planning system, though community groups have voiced concern about the limited amount available for community engagement.

The budget allocated $20.9 million to implement the state’s new planning system in 2013-14, with up to $3 million of it to “build a new culture of community participation”.

“For too long, local communities have been sidelined in the really important decisions about the future of their neighbourhoods, suburbs and regions,”  planning minister Brad Hazzard said.

“Communities will work with councils and state agencies to create a shared vision for the housing, jobs and infrastructure in their regions with upfront strategic planning.”

The Planning Institute of Australia said the funding was “a strong sign that the Government is taking planning reform seriously”.

PIA NSW president Sarah Hill said the group was particularly pleased to see specific reference to consultation and culture.

“These are the cornerstones for successful implementation of the new system,” she said. “We need to bring the community with us on this journey with real and open engagement.”

“PIA has advocated for an acknowledgement of the critical role that changing the culture of planning will play in a new planning system, and the 2013-14 budget allocations will go some way to this.”

“It is an exciting time to be a planner in NSW and we look forward to the hard work which is to come in making the new system a positive for NSW.”

Urban Taskforce chief executive officer Chris Johnson also thought the news was positive, but said that community groups had been “negative”.

“While we support the involvement of communities in the strategic phase of planning this needs to be done with a full understanding of the need to manage growth and change,” he said.

“Our perception has been that many community groups are against development. The allocation of $3 million for community engagement and cultural change needs to help raise community awareness about the need to manage growth and to therefore avoid individual project fights.

“The community engagement process should look at improving the communities understanding of developers and explain their role as providers of jobs and housing. The overly negative attitude of some community groups, including the Greens, to the development industry needs to be modified by more interaction between the groups.”

Better Planning Network convenor Corinne Fisher said that Mr Johnson’s comments about community group negativity reflected a misunderstanding of community concern about the proposed changes.

“It also shows that he is underestimating the importance of community acceptance to the long-term success of the government’s reforms,” she said.

“If Chris wants to do a good job of representing UT interests in the long-term, he may well have to start listening to and attempting to address community concerns, rather than continuing to portray these concerns as ‘negative’”.

Ms Fisher said that the funding for community participation was inadequate.

“The allocation of $3 million for community engagement and cultural change is a drop in the ocean,” she said. “Even if that money went straight to the local councils for preparation of the new local plans and engagement of the community in that process, it would be no more than $19,736 per council – hardly adequate.”

The post NSW budget for planning reform: industry likes, community not so much appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

Bond University Mirvac School of Sustainable Development

20 June 2013 — Queensland is winning the Green Star race, with thirty per cent of Brisbane’s office space Green Star-certified, compared with the national average of 20 per cent.

“We know the Queensland property and construction sector is experiencing challenging times,” said GBCA chief operating officer Robin Mellon. “However industry is demonstrating that Green Star-rated buildings make smart economic sense.”

Of the 582 Green Star projects around Australia, 126 are in Queensland, including the first Green Star retail, industrial and educational facilities.

Some examples of Green Star-rated buildings in the state include:

• Green Square North Tower, which has reduced one tenant’s energy bills from $12,000 to $8,000 a month, despite a doubling of floor space.
• Bay View State School, which holds a 100 per cent parent satisfaction rate and attendance three per cent higher than the regional average
• Peregian Springs State School, which recorded the highest ever enrolment in Queensland before it even opened
• Orion Springfield Town Centre, which is designed to use half the energy of a similar-sized shopping centre and uses around 60 per cent less water
• Bond University Mirvac School of Sustainable Development, which has attracted more international students and developed new research partnerships as a result of its Green Star rating

“Green Star certifications continue to climb as industry sees the benefits in future-proofing assets against rising utility prices, the effects of a changing climate and challenging economic circumstances,” said Mr Mellon.

“We look forward to seeing more policies and actions that recognise how environmentally and occupant-friendly buildings can deliver significant benefits to the economy – as well as the bottom line. And we look forward to the Queensland Government recommitting to Green Star as the independent method of measurement for best practice.”

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Mr Guy has approved a grant of $7.7 million to the Geelong City Council with $7.1 million to be allocated for construction of an Armstrong Creek East neighbourhood health and community centre.

A total of $500,000 has been given for an Armstrong Creek East community sport pavilion and $140,000 to the Geelong Council for infrastructure planning and implementation.

“These state-of-the-art facilities for this growing region within the greater Geelong area will support the estimated forecast population growth of around 50,000 people,” Mr Guy said.

“Six hundred residences are underway or completed in Armstrong Creek, with an expected target of 800 residences by the end of 2013 and a further 600 next year.

“This is a key urban growth project in Geelong and will deliver a supply of residential land and a mix of retail; education and community uses; and provide up to 22,000 local jobs.”

The post New funding for Geelong’s key growth area appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

Five councils from around Australia were recognised for their commitment to keep old mobiles in their local area out of landfill.

The awards and winners were:

• Top Collector Overall – City of Monash (VIC)
• Top Collector Per Capita – Bruce Rock Shire Council (WA)
• Best Promoter – Camden Council (NSW)
• Working with Schools – The Hills Shire (NSW)
• National Excellence – City of Vincent (WA)

“We work closely with our council partners to ensure that their local communities have easy, free access to mobile phone recycling in their local area,” said recycling manager of MobileMuster Rose Read. “Last year MobileMuster recycled over 117 tonnes of old mobile phone components.”

“Recycling through the program last year replaced the need to mine over 1165 tonnes of precious metals and had the environmental benefit of planting 5600 trees – our council partners play an important part in this impact.”

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19 June 2013 —

The body said that more proactive policies were needed on Australian cities. In the lead-up to the election, ASBEC called on political parties to support the following policies:

• Elevate the Major Cities Unit and establish a Minister for Cities and Urban Development – transform the Major Cities Unit into a Department for Cities and Urban Development to provide a centre of excellence within the Australian Government, resourced to work across governments and portfolios to develop and implement policies supporting better cities
• Adopt a national approach to our cities with a strong governance framework – implement a framework to inform public policy and decision-making; develop a set of national, evidence-based urban indicators to measure the performance of cities; adopt an integrated and accountable approach to governance, based on national competition policy, that encompasses all three spheres of government; and identify effective funding models to ensure urban infrastructure is adequately financed
• Establish an Urban Infrastructure Fund – increase the capital available to fund local community infrastructure focused on improving productivity, liveability and sustainability
• Align Infrastructure Australia with National Urban Policy – ensure Infrastructure Australia can effectively interface with the Major Cities Unit and the National Urban Policy Forum, and better integrate infrastructure prioritisation and delivery with urban development policy and research
• Deliver a quantum leap in sustainable, affordable housing – implement a national framework for the delivery of affordable and sustainable housing, establishing targets for new and existing buildings; identifying barriers and providing strategies to overcome them; providing meaningful housing policies and supporting initiatives that offer incentives for developers, owners and tenants to convert industry leadership into standard practice; aligning voluntary standards with mandatory requirements; harmonising rating tools; and providing an implementation plan to convert the framework into action
• Focus on climate change adaptation and resilience – apply ASBEC’s Built Environment Adaptation Framework to the development of a coordinated, well-resourced and nationally consistent suite of policies to better protect our cities from predicted climate change risks and maximise resource security

“Australian cities are the country’s largest productivity and residential hubs, hosting three-quarters of our population and generating more than 80 per cent of our GDP,” said chair of chair of ASBEC’s cities and regions policy task group Romilly Madew. “A nationally coordinated focus on cities is paramount.”

“While we applaud the work of the current Australian Government – particularly the establishment of the Major Cities Unit and launch of the National Urban Policy – we must now transform these ideas into actions and results.

“The policies and programs we implement today will determine whether our cities are prosperous, liveable and sustainable places for many generations to come.”

The post Six-point plan for sustainable Australian cities appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

By Klaas Visser, KAV Consulting

19 June 2013 — LETTER: I just noticed the news that Sydney has dropped its trigeneration plans.

Last year I was invited to speak at the Asia Pacific District Cooling Forum. I was also asked to find other speakers and I invited a representative of the City of Sydney to come with me to speak on the Sydney trigeneration project. Nobody could come so I thought to say a few words about it myself to give Sydney a plug.

When I sat down to consider the Sydney proposal, it soon became clear to me that the Sydney plan was fatally flawed. I then set down and tried to find a solution.

The solution lies in existing technology called combined cycle generation. The novelty consists in the fact that I have added a heat pump to condense the steam from the second-stage steam turbine. Thus a great feature of the system is that it would make water and not need any cooling water. Also, it would not be necessary to reticulate any hot water through the city to provide heat for low coefficient of performance (about 0.5) absorption cooling and avoid installation of all the absorption systems at individual buildings.

We would simply supply a lot more electricity for the same fuel consumption, thereby reducing emissions very significantly. We would drive chiller sets to provide cooling with the extra electrical energy at COPs of three to four, which is six to eight times more efficient than absorption cooling.

If we then set about retrofitting CO2 or ammonia systems to existing buildings, we would reduce the emissions even further as these total energy systems are much more efficient the present HFC chiller sets with cooling towers.

If Sydney were to implement both schemes over time, Sydney would be the cleanest city in the world in terms of the lowest emissions, and energy and water consumption per square metre of city office building.

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18 June 2013 —

NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker said the launch of NABERS NZ in Auckland is the first time that Australia’s star rating system for offices has been adopted overseas.

“The adoption of the program by our New Zealand neighbours is testament to NSW’s world-leading environmental credentials.

NABERS is administered by the NSW Government on behalf of Australia’s state and territory governments.

“More than 70 per cent of NSW’s office market has been rated with NABERS Energy for Offices, making our property sector a world leader in sustainability,” Ms Parker said.

“The rating system has helped drive energy efficiency in the commercial property sector.

“It recognises both sustainability achievements and gives building owners and tenants a goal to aspire to, which will help them to keep improving.”

New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority chief executive Mike Underhill said he had observed the success NABERS has had in raising the profile of good energy management in commercial offices.

“New Zealand commercial office buildings could save 25 per cent in energy costs through improved energy management. The introduction of NABERS NZ will help building owners and tenants to realise these savings.”

NSW Office of Environment and Heritage regional operations group water and energy programs director Matthew Clark said New Zealand had approached his department 12 months ago to talk about expanding the NABERS program across the Tasman.

“They wanted to work with us and we were quite open to that,” he said.

Mr Clark said the two programs were very similar although slightly different with the way energy was generated in New Zealand.

“(And) from what I hear there is really strong support from property owners.

“There is also some cross ownership of buildings in Australia and New Zealand so they can also see the benefits of the being able to apply NABERS in New Zealand as well.”

Mr Clark said property owners were keen to save on direct costs along with being good corporate citizens.

“The commercial property market in Australia is quite sophisticated in that way – and New Zealand can see we are achieving real success with programs like NABERS.”

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Matthew Trigg

18 June 2013 — Former national policy advisor for the Facility Management Association of Australia, Matthew Trigg, has taken on the position of policy and scrutiny officer with Westminster City Council in London.

Mr Trigg, who has also had roles as board member with Beyond Zero Emissions, director/principal consultant with MT Built Environment and smart cities project coordinator with the Australian Conservation Foundation, said he would be working as a non-political officer helping 60 councillors “hold the Cabinet, senior council officers and other relevant bodies to account, while also furthering the interests of the overall city”.

“Because of my past experience, education, I have been immediately allocated responsibility for supporting the Environment Committee – which includes most of the natural and built environment issues facing the city, and the Children’s and Community Services Committee – dealing with issues like schools, education, child poverty, community protection, sports, leisure and the arts.

“The governance process in really quite interesting and follows a similar model to the Federal government in Australia.

“Westminster is unlike anything we have back in Australia; a leading council containing the homes of the UK government, the British/Australian monarchy and so much more.

“All while having an average 30 per cent turnover in residents each year and one of the lowest council tax rates in the UK.”

See our story:  Matthew Trigg on facilities management, Germany and the built environment

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Ross Garnaut

By Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

18 June 2013 — Economist Ross Garnaut has warned against over-playing the dangers of economic growth damaging the ecosystems that are important to life.

Current patterns of economic growth had those effects, he said, but “economic growth is not inherently in conflict with conservation of the natural environment”.

Garnaut, who did much of the groundwork for Labor’s carbon pricing, was launching a booklet of essays titled “Placing global change on the Australian election agenda”.

It has been issued by Australia21, a non-profit group, chaired by a former secretary of the defence department, Paul Barratt, that promotes research on big issues.

The aim of the booklet is to “stimulate a constructive discussion between voters and political aspirants from all parties about the kind of Australia we will leave to our children in an increasingly hazardous, globalised and resource-constrained world”.

The essays have a heavy emphasis on climate change but also cover such topics as defence, the global financial future and the threat from chemical and antibiotic overuse.

Garnaut said that increases in material wellbeing (“economic growth”) derived from increases in population, in the amount of capital each worker used and in productivity.

While an inexorable increase in population was by definition in conflict with finite natural resources, experience showed that rising living standards reduced fertility, in a process that was stronger “than the edicts of imans as well as popes”.

Increases in capital per worker could be resource-saving or resource-using – and he suggested China would provide an example of the former, Garnaut said.

The same went for productivity growth which came from technological change – much technological improvement resulted in less pressure on natural systems per unit of economic value.

“When we see economic growth in this light, we do not need to make enemies of the whole of the developing world’s people as they seek higher standards of living.

“When we see economic growth in this light, we recognise that the important thing is to make sure that we put in place policies that encourage resource-conserving and discourage resource-using capital intensification and technological change”.

That was what Australia had done in a small but so far effective way with its carbon pricing and associated clean energy policies.

He conceded that the linking of the Australian price to the European Union from 2015 would probably lead to lower carbon prices for a while and diminished pressure for the use of carbon-conserving investments and technologies.

“However, the pressure of the carbon pricing causes firms to consider the likelihood that European prices will rise in future, and to think twice about the carbon intensity of future output from investments that they are making now”.

In a shot at the opposition, which is pledged to remove the carbon tax, Garnaut said: “To expect Australians to put the welfare of future Australians near the top of their priorities may be too much to ask as we live through what I hope are the later days of the great Australian complacency.

“But surely it is not too much to expect that we will not make things worse, by retreating on the modest steps forward that we have made in addressing one of the great challenges facing our people”.

In the preface to the booklet Barratt and editor Bob Douglas, former director of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU, have framed a dozen sets of questions that they hope “become part of the political discourse in the lead up to the election of our next government”.

If you want to grill your local candidates during this election, here are some of the questions. (Good luck with them.)

GREENHOUSE GASES. Do you believe we should radically curtail energy production from fossil fuels? If so, over what timeframe? Should we also curtail our mining and export of fossil fuels to other countries?

ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT AND GROWTH. Do we need to develop a more “steady state” approach to economic management, in which we can maintain full employment without rapid growth in the demands placed upon our resources and the biosphere?

DEFENCE POLICY. Are we spending enough on defence for the Australian Defence Force to be able to meet your expectations? Are you concerned about the prospect of strategic competition emerging between China and the US, and how should Australia respond?

FOOD FOR OUR FUTURE. What are the prospects of Australia feeding itself in the context of rising temperatures, declining extent and health of croplands, and rising food prices and international famine?

OUR DEPENDENCY ON OIL Should the government adopt policies to ensure we have specified stock levels of fuels and lubricants in-country?

PROSPECTS FOR THE GLOBAL ECONOMY What is the likelihood of another global financial crisis? What should we do to prepare for such an eventuality?

PROTECTION AGAINST TOXINS AND ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE. What role should government play in protecting the community against exposure to toxins and deterioration in antibiotic sensitivity?

THE VALUATION OF SERVICES PROVIDED BY ECOSYSTEMS. Should we include in our evaluation of proposed developments or changed land use the economic value of the services provided by local ecosystems to human communities and to industry?

ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTS AND EQUITY. How can we reduce our per capita footprint in a way that both assists developing countries and makes limited resources more equitably available to all Australians?

ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES. How should we best integrate provision for refugees from the results of climate change into our immigration policy?

DOMESTIC TRAVEL. Do you think that the rising demand for rapid movement between our major cities can be met into the indefinite future by increasing civil aviation capacity?

RESPONDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE COMING GENERATION. Is Australia preparing its younger population adequately for the likely risks ahead as climate change and resource scarcity challenge the conventional wisdom of endless economic growth?

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

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18 June 2013 — The Queensland Planning and Environment Court has dismissed an appeal by the developer of a large resort and residential community on Rainbow Beach on the basis of its exposure to erosion, storm surge and climate change-related sea level rise.

Business law firm DLA Piper said the decision, delivered on June 13, sends a strong message on development subject to climate change and inundation from potential sea level rises.

The land developer Rainbow Shores P/L wanted to build on had been overlaid by coastal hazard mapping, and considering the extent to which the proposed development would be subject to storm surge, including potential sea level rise due to climate change, the court found much of the site could be susceptible to inundation.

In dismissing the appeal and disallowing the development, the judge said, “It would, in my view, be unwise to grant a preliminary approval, which is to set the framework for substantial development over a long period of time in this locality, without ensuring that the future development is protected from potential inundation.”

DLA Piper said that the decision recognises that long-term climate change impacts – at least in regards to sea level rise – must be considered when deciding applications for development proposed along the coast.

It said the decision marks a critical point in planning law and sends a message to planning decision makers about the increasing relevance of sea level rise and climate change-related coastal inundation to coastal development.

“Where development is proposed in a coastal hazard area and is potentially susceptible to storm surge inundation, unless otherwise protected, it is unlikely to be approved,” said DLA Piper.

The post Queensland court: building on climate change flood land not OK appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

18 June 2013 —

The metered energy efficiency transaction structure, or MEETS, is designed to remove conflicts between landlords, tenants, investors and electricity providers that could hinder energy efficiency retrofits, EnergyRM chief executive Rob Harmon told greentechmedia.

“Let’s say a utility customer wants to invest in efficiency,” the article says. “A MEETS starts with a simple meter installed on that customer’s building by EnergyRM to measure energy use and normalise the data. That provides the baseline for energy consumption.

“Next, an investor is brought in to finance a project on the building. Much like a third-party solar lease, the investor ‘rents’ the building for installation of energy-efficient equipment and compensates the owner with a monthly payment.

“Once that energy-efficient equipment is operating, EnergyRM is able to measure the baseline consumption data against the efficiency savings, thus establishing the ‘metered energy efficiency.’

“The utility then charges the building owner for electricity based upon the baseline data, just as it normally would without the efficiency upgrade. (Again, the building owner is getting a monthly rental payment from the investor, rather than going through the utility.) The investor who owns the energy efficiency project gets paid a premium by the utility over a twenty-year contract for each kilowatt-hour of metered energy efficiency, or ‘negawatts’, delivered.

“The utility can then turn around and sell those energy reductions into the capacity markets or energy markets and get compensated for not having to build a new power plant.

“So what does this mean?

“It means the building owner – who receives monthly rental payments from the investor, continues her same relationship with the utility and has a more valuable building – theoretically has no disincentive to upgrade the facility.

“It means the investor – which has a stable twenty-year agreement with the utility based on performance – has every incentive to maintain and deepen energy savings.

“And it means the utility – which gets fully compensated for the electricity sold to the building owner and can treat efficiency like a power purchase agreement for any other generation source – is ‘made whole’ by the structure.”

Read the full story here.

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18 June 2013 —

The jury said the house had endured and has stood the test of time and “remains quite simply an exemplar of intelligent and economically sustainable design”.

“Among other enduring aspects of this house, we felt strongly that this is a clever example of fundamental ecologically sustainable development principals at work,” the jury said.

Sustainable Architecture Awards went to Goolwa Beach House – Grieve Gillett and Barossa Valley Glass House – Max Pritchard Architect.

A commendation went to Fan and Flare – Khab Architects and the Bonython Park Upgrade – New Playspace by WAX Design and Ric Mcconaghy.

Adrian Evans, whose work has included the Margaret Tobin Mental Health Centre at Flinders University and the Wave and Edge Office and Apartments Development at the southern end of King William Street, was awarded the Sir James Irwin President’s Prize.

The Emerging Architects Prize went to Alex Hall of Hassell SA for his “dedication and enthusiasm towards the profession of architecture and design, as well as his involvement and achievements within professional, educational and community groups”.

The post Roach House Belair stand test of time appeared first on The Fifth Estate.

18 June 2013 —

The issue will be under discussion at the 20^th Australian HACCP Conference in August.

Future Directions International chief executive officer John Hartley said Australia urgently needed more produce to be grown here along with a clarified food policy that incorporated reasons why Australia needed a viable agricultural and pastoral sector.

Different policy and regulatory areas related to food should be brought together, he said.

“We need an analysis of the northern land’s size, challenges of soil and its access to water. Major investment into this area could potentially increase productivity in cattle, sugar and other crops within Australia,” Mr Hartley said.

Other speakers at the event include Foodbank Australia general manager Greg Warren and Foodlink Management Services managing director Bill McBride.

The 20th Australian HACCP Conference will take place at Pier Docklands, Melbourne on 27-29 August 2013. Details: www.haccptown.com.au/conference

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17 June 2013 —

Laws determining how farmers can clear native vegetation on their land will be overhauled through changes to the Native Vegetation Act, the Threatened Species Conservation Act and related legislation, deputy premier and NSW Nationals leader Andrew Stoner told a conference in Bathurst on Friday.

“It seems to us they are taking their guidance from the environmental vandals of Queensland – just doing it slower,” said Total Environment Centre executive director Jeff Angel. “The introduction of so-called self-assessment codes for clearing and complete review of the two fundamental pieces of law that seek to protect bushland and threatened species across the state are a shocking turn of events.”

Executive director of the Environment Defenders Office NSW Jeff Smith told ABC’s Radio National that the laws, which he worked on, were brought in due to high levels of land clearing and inadequate enforcement.

“We’re now moving down the path of allowing farmers to self assess, which harkens back to the old style of regulation which in NSW wasn’t working,” he said.

“We are on the slippery slope towards major environmental destruction,” said Mr Angel. “The O’Farrell government’s claim that they want to develop best practice bushland and threatened species protection legislation and integrate with the planning act is laughable. The Acts we already have are best practice and the current proposals for a new planning act seriously weaken environment protection.”

President of the NSW Farmers Fiona Simson welcomed the news, saying “the current Native Vegetation Act in New South Wales seems to be predicated on a thought that farmers are environmental vandals”.

In Queensland, changes recently brought in by the Newman government removed barriers for vegetation clearance to help the government achieve its goal of doubling Queensland’s food production by 2040.

Prior to the reform, a group of 27 Queensland scientists urged Premier Campbell Newman to reconsider the changes, saying that it could lead to devastating species and habitat loss.

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17 June 2013 —

The Melton Library and Learning Hub in Victoria has been awarded a 5-star Green Star – Public Building Design pilot rating from the Green Building Council of Australia.

“The Melton Library and Community Hub is more than a repository for books,” said GBCA chief executive Romilly Madew. “It’s a place for the community to gain insight and inspiration into the benefits of working in or visiting a sustainable building.

“These benefits range from reduced costs to a healthier, more productive place to learn.”

Mayor of Melton City Council Kathy Majdlik said the council was very proud of the achievement, and that they would “educate our residents on the sustainability aspects of the building and encourage them to apply them at home where they can”.

The library incorporates a range of spaces, including an 80-seat auditorium, community services including maternal and child health, a cafe and a range of activity and breakout rooms.

Building achievements include:

• An 82% reduction in potable water use when compared with a standard practice building
• 92% recycling rate of the previous buildings, which were demolished during the construction process
• A 43.7% reduction in total CO2 emissions related to the building use
• Annual utility cost savings of $29,800 a year, including $23,700 savings in gas and $5,000 in water, when compared with other non-Green Star buildings.

“When building projects are funded by public money, councils must be able to demonstrate the value of their investments and the accountability of taxpayers’ dollars,” said Ms Madew. “A Green Star rating gives the people of Melton confidence that their community’s assets will deliver ongoing operational efficiencies and long-term value.”

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