Environmental Building in Australia
Posted: July 29, 2009 by Roger, Category:Sustainability
We all know that buildings are responsible for most of our water consumption and more than their fair share of carbon dioxide emissions, in fact Australian’s have the 4th highest carbon footprint. So just what is Australia doing about it? Well quite a bit actually.
The New Labour Government (ALP) have been in power since November 2007, and within weeks of entering office had pushed forward with ratifying Kyoto and setting up an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The ETS has unfortunately been delayed due to the current global financial crisis but it targets a 25% reduction on 2000 levels by 2020, equivalent to stabilising levels of CO₂ to 450 ppm. Permits are set to start at $10 a tonne with market trading to begin in 2012. In essence the Australian government is keen to mandate green.
Australia lags the UK and US in terms of its green building initiatives, but momentum is growing especially within the property industry which is keen to future-proof its assests. Many of the industry’s leading building owners, investors and developers have signed up to the Green Star Business Partnership and pledged their support to adopting this rating system. These include ASX 200 firms like Lend Lease, Stockland and Multiplex.
A building’s performance is measured using a number of regulatory and voluntary schemes in Australia; like Green Star, Nabers, BCA Part J, and Nathers etc. As in the US, there is a large variation in climate types across Australia; from mild temperate to tropical. This means sustainable solutions and techniques to improve building performance and ratings need to be varied and well understood. For example, Canberra has a large diurnal range and is therefore more suited to passive solar and thermal mass, whereas Queensland may find systems to combat large latent gains and control of humidity more important.
IES has had a presence in Australia since 2006. Our consulting services and <Virtual Environment> software, with its powerful analysis capacity, has helped many in Australia deliver more energy efficient, better performing and future-proofed buildings. We’ve worked on 6 Star Green Star projects such as the refurbishment of the new AEI HQ in Canberra, and share a growing sense or pride and responsibility with Australia’s burgeoning green building industry.
Last month the company’s founder and MD, Dr Don McLean visted us here in Australia and we went on a roadtrip across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - 3 seminars to 80+ people and 17 face-to-face meetings in 3 days!!! Australia’s M&E Engineers, are the best in the world, and it was great to receive such positive feedback from them on the new HVAC features in the latest version of our software (V6). Comments like “we’ve been using IES for 4-5 years now and it just gets better and better!” were music to our ears, making all the hard work worth while!
Our other architect orientated new additions were also met a very positive response - one customer commented; “I don’t believe you can do that by pressing one button”…the button was pressed…”Wow you can! Brilliant!”
I can’t wait to see what the next 3 years bring - it’s definitely very exciting times…
Roger
Sydney Opera House
