As Sustainable Built Environments (SBE) celebrates its achievements, including helping develop Green Star ratings, Jane Toner looks ahead to the next challenges for building designers.
With more than 4 million sqm of Green Starcertified space around Australia, and another 8 million sqm of Green Star-registered space, there is no doubt that Green Star has transformed Australia's property and construction market.
The Green Star rating system is now very much a part of the furniture.
But when our environmental design firm SBE was founded 10 years ago, there was no widely accepted tool for planning for energy efficiency at the building design stage. SBE has actively participated in the evolution of the Green Star rating system.
In fact, SBE was founded prior to the establishment of the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), in the wake of the momentum created by the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
The firm was founded in Melbourne by the late David Oppenheim in 2001, aiming to influence big business to adopt a holistic vision that would see built environments developed with integrated design solutions.
Oppenheim wanted to work with “champions” to promote sustainable buildings and at the same time encourage the development of more stringent regulation to provide the “stick”.
Prior to the development of the Green Star Office Design tool, SBE worked with the project team to develop a range of sustainable design initiatives suitable for the refurbishment of 500 Collins St, Melbourne. The version 1 tool was released by the GBCA in 2003 and adopted by the project to prove its environmental credentials.
The green ground work translated well into an iconic five star project which was the first refurbished CBD office building in Australia to obtain such a rating.
More recently, SBE has worked on 321 Exhibition Street Melbourne, the first refurbishment in Australia to achieve a Green Star Office Design (version 3 rating).
SBE was one of the first integrated teams in Australia offer ESD consulting advice.
Many engineering firms have now taken sustainability on board since then, but we remain proud of our pioneer role in the field.
Over the last ten years, we have witnessed a transformation of the Australian building industry’s understanding of sustainability, in terms of a more developed awareness of sustainable building practices and materials.
When working on 500 Collins Street, we found that many suppliers had no idea what we were talking about when we asked if they had product stewardship, for example. There has been a distinct shift in the ability to select sustainable materials with third party certification schemes such as Good Environmental Choice Australia.
While we have come a design should inherently be sustainable.
Conservatism and inertia in general remain the main barrier, and the fact is, companies and people do not believe that their individual action can make any real difference.
This is compounded by the lack of understanding and knowledge about building performance, on-going operational costs and end of life considerations.
There are also still some regulatory impediments in relation to energy generation (co-generation, for example in relation to the feed-in tariff and limits on generation capacity).
Split incentives still exist, where tenants pay the cost of under-performing buildings and owners do not have an incentive to invest in making buildings perform better as they do not see the return on their potential investment).
SBE believes that the ultimate environmental design aim for our built environment is to create buildings that: use no energy, no water, produce no waste in operation or construction and that are made of materials derived from fully sustainable sources. Whilst this is very difficult to achieve in practice, this aim should act as a theoretical lighthouse for the opportunities considered in any project.
While we have come a long way in a decade, we still have plenty to do.
Jane Toner is a Senior Associate at SBE. She is a Green Star and LEED Accredited Professional and a registered architect with the ability to assess and identify ESD opportunities in a broad range of building types. Since joining SBE in 2003, Toner has provided innovative and practical ESD advice for projects which have included: leisure and aquatic centres, residential projects, ecotourism facilities, hotels, offices, healthcare and retail. She has contributed to developing ESD guidelines, such as the DEH ESD Operations Guide.
long way in environmental design, Australia remains behind Europe and America in developing high performance building materials, such as thermally broken framing for double glazed windows.
We need to continue to demand higher environmental standards for the products and materials we specify in our buildings as this pushes suppliers to develop a greater understanding of their products.
Architects also need to come on board and consider the future consequences of their design decisions.
Glossy magazine worthy design should inherently be sustainable.
Conservatism and inertia in general remain the main barrier, and the fact is, companies and people do not believe that their individual action can make any real difference.
This is compounded by the lack of understanding and knowledge about building performance, on-going operational costs and end of life considerations.
There are also still some regulatory impediments in relation to energy generation (co-generation, for example in relation to the feed-in tariff and limits on generation capacity).
Split incentives still exist, where tenants pay the cost of under-performing buildings and owners do not have an incentive to invest in making buildings perform better as they do not see the return on their potential investment).
SBE believes that the ultimate environmental design aim for our built environment is to create buildings that: use no energy, no water, produce no waste in operation or construction and that are made of materials derived from fully sustainable sources. Whilst this is very difficult to achieve in practice, this aim should act as a theoretical lighthouse for the opportunities considered in any project.
While we have come a long way in a decade, we still have plenty to do.
Jane Toner is a Senior Associate at SBE. She is a Green Star and LEED Accredited Professional and a registered architect with the ability to assess and identify ESD opportunities in a broad range of building types. Since joining SBE in 2003, Toner has provided innovative and practical ESD advice for projects which have included: leisure and aquatic centres, residential projects, ecotourism facilities, hotels, offices, healthcare and retail. She has contributed to developing ESD guidelines, such as the DEH ESD Operations Guide.
