With the third annual Sustainability Live conference being the biggest and best yet, here are some key takeaways from this year’s event.
First of all, the crisis around apartment building quality is real and will only get worse unless various governments around Australia enact and enforce legislation soon. The need to minimise plastic waste from the construction sector has also reached a critical stage, considering plastic waste from this sector equals about 10 million tonnes annually.
At the same time, there is a serious need for window testing to be expanded to ensure the thermal efficiency of our buildings.
Speaking of efficiency, architects must use their influence to encourage clients to explore adaptive re-use wherever possible for the maximum sustainable result in projects and our cities as a whole. Indeed, our cities are facing unique challenges, in terms of both sustainability and the fact that they are evolving to become more like IT systems than a collection of people and structures.
And lastly, with less than one percent of Australian architects being Indigenous, more needs to be done to get this number in line with demographic realities and ensure Indigenous practices inform the evolution of our cities.
The Sustainability Live conference may have come to an end, but hopefully the knowledge and solutions passed on from our expert panellists will continue to live on and be implemented throughout the built environment industry. We hope you had a great time at Sustainability Live 2019 and we will see you next year in Melbourne for more crucial insights into the biggest issues in Australia’s sustainable built environment.
