Peddling policy change
(This piece has been published in The Australian Financial Review)
BY ANY measure, cycling in Australia is a big, growing business.
Yet with new bike sales tipping 1.47 million units in the past year, and overall annual revenues estimated to be about $1.5 billion, cycling as a transport mode is standing at a major policy crossroad – particularly in NSW.
This crossroad is starkly lit when you compare road transport policy in Sydney with that of Vancouver, Canada. It’s also clear that cycling has a long way to go in Australia’s most populous state before it plays a meaningful role in reducing our overall transport carbon footprint.
The Friends of the Earth and Australia’s Cycling Promotion Fund say cars alone contribute about 50 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in Sydney and Melbourne.
As the president of Bicycle Industries Australia (BIA), Noel McFarlane sees it, there’s no end to our growing love affair with cycling, but only about 1 per cent of all commuting travel done in Sydney is by peddle power.
“Some states are doing better, but inconsistent NSW transport policies, coupled with fractured responsibility for our road system is holding back cycling,” he says. “As Sydney’s roads become more congested, there’s less room for cycling – and many of those doing it say they consider it dangerous.”
McFarlane says that after years of working on issues such as taxes, tariffs, and manufacturing and safety standards, his industry is turning to these policy deficiencies. “We don’t need to encourage people to buy bikes; they’re already doing that,” he says. “We need to encourage them to use them – and feel safe doing so.”
He says the first thing that strikes a cyclist in Vancouver – a city of about 2.6 million people – is the clear, consistent signposting, making clear to motorists, road transport operators and other road users that cyclists have their place in the system.
The second, less obvious reality is that all roads in the city are controlled by only three administrations – Vancouver city, West Vancouver and North Vancouver. In Sydney, McFarlane says it’s hard to determine whether roads are federal, state or municipal responsibilities, with all three often bickering over the smallest things – including signposting and cycleway marking.
Third, Vancouver’s cycling system – unlike Sydney’s – is integrated.
Like Sydney, central Vancouver is densely populated. After New York and San Francisco, it has the third-highest density in North America. Vancouver embarked on an urban development policy in the 1950s and ‘60s that saw the population of its West End neighbourhood soar, resulting in a compact pedestrian/transit/bicycle-friendly core. Similar growth has occurred within 15 kilometres of Sydney’s CBD – but without an adequate policy framework in place.
McFarlane says Vancouver’s authorities also have a clear set of road-transport policies. In order, they prioritise pedestrians, cyclists, public transport operators, freight transport operators and private car users in all developments. What’s more, a single body controls land use and development, eliminating bureaucratic stumbling blocks encountered in other cities, like Sydney.
“Before any road or pedestrian project starts, it’s weighed against this priority list to help determine all transport outcomes,” McFarlane says. “As a result, cyclists know they can ride comfortably and safely throughout Vancouver.”
Vancouver’s director of planning Brent Toderian says the city’s cycling network started about 16 years ago with the development of the Local Street Bikeways concept. “Since then, the network has grown to include more than 400 kilometres of [integrated] arterial bicycle facilities, including bike lanes and off-street paths,” he says. “Complementing this network is [Vancouver’s] Greenway’s Plan, a network of green corridors enhanced for walking and cycling, with amenities like landscaping, benches and water fountains.”
Since 1995, the city’s development by-laws have included requirements for end-of-trip facilities in all new developments, Toderian says. These include bike racks, secure indoor storage, and shower and changing facilities.
None of this is expensive in the overall transportation scheme; annual expenditure on all bicycle and greenways networks averages slightly more than $C4 million ($5 million) a year.
With some 57,000 commuters riding bikes every day, completing more than 4 per cent of all road trips (up from 1.3 per cent in 1994), it’s costing Vancouver less than C20c per bike rider per day.
“We haven’t even scratched the surface in Sydney when it comes to implementing or costing this kind of integrated policy,” McFarlane says.
Greens parliamentarian Lee Rhiannon says the NSW government only has eyes for cars. In a heated exchange with then minister for roads Michael Costa in 2005, Rhiannon questioned Costa over the Roads and Traffic Authority’s axing of cycling funding that year while the overall RTA budget was boosted 12 per cent.
Costa said: “In terms of motor vehicles, more than 90 per cent of journeys on any day are by road. Therefore we need to provide road infrastructure.”
“The NSW government doesn’t get it,” Rhiannon says. “It thinks roads are for cars. Full stop. There’s no real plan to make cycling more popular and accessible in the state.”
McFarlane agrees. He says that compared with Vancouver’s cycling costs, Australia’s unco-ordinated approach is financially crippling.
In its recent submission to the taxation system review panel, the Cycling Promotion Fund cited 2007 Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics figures pegged national traffic congestion costs at an estimated $9.4 billion a year – rising to more than $10 billion by 2010. It estimated the cost of road transport and noise pollution at more than $3 billion.
More shockingly, though, Access Economics has estimated the health cost of obesity alone at $21 billion – more than double the cost of Medicare. “For our health’s sake, and as Australia’s population ages, we simply have to do more exercise – including using all the bicycles we’re buying in increasing numbers,” McFarlane says.
BIA has decided to go national, and has appointed former Olympian cyclist and director of Cycling Australia Stephen Hodge as its federal government lobbyist. “A trickle-down effect may get us a co-ordinated national policy-development framework,” McFarlane says.
Even NSW Police has recognised cycling’s benefits. Its fleet of 638 mountain bikes cost about $3500 a year each to keep on the roads, compared with about $30,000 a year per car. And each litre of fuel it saves is saving 2.8 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Reliable revenue streams from water
(This article has been published in The Australian Financial Review)
Australia’s centralised urban water supplies may be generating healthy, ongoing revenues for State Governments, but they’re stifling flexibility, helping to contribute to a burgeoning current account deficit and stand in the road of local innovation and industry development.
Australia’s centralised water supply arrangements have been good, reliable revenue streams for successive State and Territory Governments over the past 150 years.
Today, with all major cities in the grip of one our worst ever droughts, State Treasuries quietly continue reaping annual dividends of more than $1 billion from their water monopolies whilst an excess of water in our cities remains unused.
According to one of Australia’s leading authorities on sustainable urban water design and management, Dr Peter Coombes, this symbiotic economic arrangement began when State Governments created water and sewerage legislation, forcing residents, business and industry to buy mains water and pay for sewerage disposal.
As conjoint Associate Professor Coombes, a recent member of the Prime Ministers’ Science, Engineering and Innovation Council working group on Water for Cities is well qualified to comment; he’s considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on urban water planning and design.
“This continuing centralisation has narrowed debate, along with the perceived range of water options for our major cities,” he says. “What’s more, the longer this centralised model persists, the more it will add to Australia’s growing current account deficit while holding back local industry, manufacturing initiative and employment opportunities.”
Moreover, he says “the centralised monopoly structure has fostered direct and indirect economic dependence on water monopolies thereby limiting innovation and adoption of alternatives in the water sector”.
Coombes is convinced that while population growth, drought and climate change are emerging problems, they can be addressed over time through a sum total of small, individual solutions to supplement existing centralised approaches.
“When it comes to water, these small solutions are in the hands of householders, businesses and industry when they embrace decentralised water management based on rainwater harvesting, recycling and sewer mining,” he says. “However, decentralised solutions unfortunately are not in the interests of Big Water and State Treasuries.”
Coombes says the preferred Big Water model is to take water from large dams (or desalination plants), treat it to drinking quality, then transport it through extensive, leaky and increasingly expensive infrastructure – often over long distances – to customers. A similarly extensive, deteriorating centralised network of pipes carry away urban sewerage and stormwater run-off, only to dump it in our waterways.
“The bigger the city, the less efficient the system,” he says. “And ironically, the bigger the city, the bigger and more powerful the centralised water monopoly becomes.”
Coombes says it’s therefore not surprising that water authorities’ response to Australia’s growing water crisis is for yet more centralisation, with large-scale desalination and recycling plants the jewels in their management crowns.
“A simple answer to our growing problem is within our cities as urban rainwater and stormwater runoff, and sewerage discharges,” he says. “Few Australians realise the volume of sewerage discharged is about 50 per cent of the volume of household water use in our towns and cities.
“When we add the water rushing down our gutters and drains after even small rain showers, and we’re staring at an untapped resource that means no Australian city should be short of water.
“The volume of stormwater runoff alone from a city is often greater than all combined household water use!”
The Australian Water Association estimates Australia’s total annual precipitation at a staggering 3.6 million gigalitres, or which only 11 per cent is estimated to run-off – some of it into major urban dams and reservoirs. Only 5 per cent, or 20,870 gigalitres can be diverted with existing water infrastructure – including all non-urban infrastructure.
However, Coombes explains “rainfall runoff from roofs and hard surfaces within cities is far more efficient and reliable even during climate change scenarios”
The AWA says all 499 of Australia’s ‘large’ dams can hold 93,656 gigalitres of water – a fraction of total annual precipitation.
“Yet 1mm of rain falling on 1000 square metres of hard roof area generated 1000 litres of useable water,” Coombes says. “And with as many as 70 per cent of all homes and buildings in Sydney having the space to fit rainwater tanks, this is an enormous potential we’re seeing run down our drains.
“Our governments and institutions should be encouraging the use of rainwater tanks and other decentralised water solutions ahead of anything else – particularly desalination.
“Instead, we’ve had the National Water Commission even considering – albeit briefly – that those households and businesses installing tanks should be taxed on the water they save.”
Coombes believes it’s insidious that Australians wishing to install and plumb in rainwater harvesting need to seek approval from existing water monopolies. Seeking rebates from the same authorities is also the ultimate conflict of interest. “It’s little wonder that increasing numbers of householders are voting with their feet, installing tanks and not applying for installation rebates,” he says.
Coombes also says many centralised water schemes currently being considered and approved will do nothing for local industry or innovation.
Technology used in desalination, for instance, is largely imported, only adding to our growing national deficit, he says.
The NSW Government has earmarked $2 billion for the Sydney desalination plant, with $500 million to be spent on new infrastructure and $300 million on what it calls ‘additional’ costs. French-based giant Veolia and the John Holland Group have been awarded the contract to build the scheme, which the government says will boost the average Sydney water bill $150 a year.
“Little of this work will add to real Australian industrial innovation or long-term job creation,” Coombes says. “Vibrant, decentralised water management schemes could mean solid growth for many Australian companies – including tank and pump makers.”
(This article has been published in The Australian Financial Review)
Australia’s centralised urban water supplies may be generating healthy, ongoing revenues for State Governments, but they’re stifling flexibility, helping to contribute to a burgeoning current account deficit and stand in the road of local innovation and industry development.
Australia’s centralised water supply arrangements have been good, reliable revenue streams for successive State and Territory Governments over the past 150 years.
Today, with all major cities in the grip of one our worst ever droughts, State Treasuries quietly continue reaping annual dividends of more than $1 billion from their water monopolies whilst an excess of water in our cities remains unused.
According to one of Australia’s leading authorities on sustainable urban water design and management, Dr Peter Coombes, this symbiotic economic arrangement began when State Governments created water and sewerage legislation, forcing residents, business and industry to buy mains water and pay for sewerage disposal.
As conjoint Associate Professor Coombes, a recent member of the Prime Ministers’ Science, Engineering and Innovation Council working group on Water for Cities is well qualified to comment; he’s considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on urban water planning and design.
“This continuing centralisation has narrowed debate, along with the perceived range of water options for our major cities,” he says. “What’s more, the longer this centralised model persists, the more it will add to Australia’s growing current account deficit while holding back local industry, manufacturing initiative and employment opportunities.”
Moreover, he says “the centralised monopoly structure has fostered direct and indirect economic dependence on water monopolies thereby limiting innovation and adoption of alternatives in the water sector”.
Coombes is convinced that while population growth, drought and climate change are emerging problems, they can be addressed over time through a sum total of small, individual solutions to supplement existing centralised approaches.
“When it comes to water, these small solutions are in the hands of householders, businesses and industry when they embrace decentralised water management based on rainwater harvesting, recycling and sewer mining,” he says. “However, decentralised solutions unfortunately are not in the interests of Big Water and State Treasuries.”
Coombes says the preferred Big Water model is to take water from large dams (or desalination plants), treat it to drinking quality, then transport it through extensive, leaky and increasingly expensive infrastructure – often over long distances – to customers. A similarly extensive, deteriorating centralised network of pipes carry away urban sewerage and stormwater run-off, only to dump it in our waterways.
“The bigger the city, the less efficient the system,” he says. “And ironically, the bigger the city, the bigger and more powerful the centralised water monopoly becomes.”
Coombes says it’s therefore not surprising that water authorities’ response to Australia’s growing water crisis is for yet more centralisation, with large-scale desalination and recycling plants the jewels in their management crowns.
“A simple answer to our growing problem is within our cities as urban rainwater and stormwater runoff, and sewerage discharges,” he says. “Few Australians realise the volume of sewerage discharged is about 50 per cent of the volume of household water use in our towns and cities.
“When we add the water rushing down our gutters and drains after even small rain showers, and we’re staring at an untapped resource that means no Australian city should be short of water.
“The volume of stormwater runoff alone from a city is often greater than all combined household water use!”
The Australian Water Association estimates Australia’s total annual precipitation at a staggering 3.6 million gigalitres, or which only 11 per cent is estimated to run-off – some of it into major urban dams and reservoirs. Only 5 per cent, or 20,870 gigalitres can be diverted with existing water infrastructure – including all non-urban infrastructure.
However, Coombes explains “rainfall runoff from roofs and hard surfaces within cities is far more efficient and reliable even during climate change scenarios”
The AWA says all 499 of Australia’s ‘large’ dams can hold 93,656 gigalitres of water – a fraction of total annual precipitation.
“Yet 1mm of rain falling on 1000 square metres of hard roof area generated 1000 litres of useable water,” Coombes says. “And with as many as 70 per cent of all homes and buildings in Sydney having the space to fit rainwater tanks, this is an enormous potential we’re seeing run down our drains.
“Our governments and institutions should be encouraging the use of rainwater tanks and other decentralised water solutions ahead of anything else – particularly desalination.
“Instead, we’ve had the National Water Commission even considering – albeit briefly – that those households and businesses installing tanks should be taxed on the water they save.”
Coombes believes it’s insidious that Australians wishing to install and plumb in rainwater harvesting need to seek approval from existing water monopolies. Seeking rebates from the same authorities is also the ultimate conflict of interest. “It’s little wonder that increasing numbers of householders are voting with their feet, installing tanks and not applying for installation rebates,” he says.
Coombes also says many centralised water schemes currently being considered and approved will do nothing for local industry or innovation.
Technology used in desalination, for instance, is largely imported, only adding to our growing national deficit, he says.
The NSW Government has earmarked $2 billion for the Sydney desalination plant, with $500 million to be spent on new infrastructure and $300 million on what it calls ‘additional’ costs. French-based giant Veolia and the John Holland Group have been awarded the contract to build the scheme, which the government says will boost the average Sydney water bill $150 a year.
“Little of this work will add to real Australian industrial innovation or long-term job creation,” Coombes says. “Vibrant, decentralised water management schemes could mean solid growth for many Australian companies – including tank and pump makers.”
Victoria, BC, pumping – but not for much longer
(This aricle is yet to be published)
Canada’s Green Building Council – an alliance of urban design, architectural, engineering and environmental groups and practitioners – is advocating a radical urban development plan for the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island.
One that revolves around a single, amoral, politically inert common denominator: money. Or, more precisely, profitability.
To date, Victoria, a city of almost 600,000 residents, has been pumping its raw sewerage and stormwater runoff directly into the North Eastern Pacific Ocean.
In June (2007), a British Columbia Provincial Government report underscored the city’s increasingly embarrassing sewerage problem, leading to a conventional proposal to build one large and several satellite sewerage treatment plants, estimated to cost some $Cn1.2 billion dollars for the plants and associated infrastructure.
The Canadian Government, the Provincial Government of Premier Gordon Campbell and the city would need to finance the proposal in equal thirds.
However, the Green Building Council has proposed a different, profit-driven approach, designed to combine ecological restoration and social equity in a fresh city-wide design.
It believes the city could be making $Cn300 million a year within the next few years from its waste, and by slashing water costs by harvesting rainwater and recycling.
The Council says Premier Campbell’s Government and the city are “extremely interested”.
Simply, the Council believes Victoria can be recycling sewerage into bio-fuels for heating and transport, and boosting water supplies by harvesting and using rainwater while recycling as much water as possible. Its plan, based on existing technology, was devised in little more than 60 days.
It also believes greenfield commercial and residential property developers – as well as property redevelopers – can look to charging a ‘green premium’ for ecologically sustainable projects incorporating these and other sustainable design elements.
As the population of the greater Vancouver area nudges 2.3 million, this proposition appears increasingly appealing, not only to Canadians and their governments, but to other major centres throughout the Cascadia region (stretching from California in the south, through Oregon, Idaho and Washington State, up into BC).
According to Patrick Lucey, senior aquatic ecologist with Aqua-Tex Scientific Consulting, one of the groups within the Green Building Council, this fresh approach would remove much of the sting from the polarising political and scientific debate surrounding sustainability with a single stroke.
“By pursuing a policy of integrated resource recovery, there are no downsides – only the advantage of being able to tap into nature’s ongoing revenue stream,” Lucey says.
”Also, those companies involved in manufacturing and marketing recycling and environmental products wouldn’t need to worry about being seen on one side or the other of this debate. They – like Victoria – could simply get on with the business of making money.
“Most of these companies, for a variety of political and business reasons, don’t want to openly back either side of the sustainability argument. However, once the debate is reduced to a compelling economic reason to embrace sustainability, they can engage whole-heartedly.”
In Sydney recently for the Rainwater and Urban Planning 2007 conference (which attracted 330 delegates from 47 countries), Lucey says by using ‘plug-and-play technology’, Victoria could minimise future environmental risks while extending a financially sound, decentralised city plan.
“Within the next 6-9 months we will produce a city-wide, sustainable design that could be delivering positive results to Victoria within two years,” he says.
According to Lucey and Aqua-Tex’s freshwater ecologist, Cori Barraclough (also involved with the growing annual Canadian Gaining Ground sustainable urban development summit), such financially based ecological change management represents “a new age of enlightenment” for fast-growing urban areas like Victoria.
The end result? The Council says environmentally appealing developments will be worth more financially on the open real estate market, attracting higher initial returns, while delivering longer-term lower running and maintenance costs.
At the conference, research by Associate Professor Peter Coombes from University of Newcastle revealed that inclusion of decentralized water intervention strategies to combat deterioration of infrastructure will reduce asset replacement and operational costs as well as environmental impacts of a metropolis over time.
On the political side, Premier Campbell is a convinced man on a mission. He believes Victoria can change from being an overall cost-centred polluter to being a profit-making recycler in less than five years. And the more appealing the city, the more growth and income it can generate.
The Green Building Council believes Victoria can expect to double in size comfortably in the decades ahead if it embraces sustainability. Both Lucey and Barraclough say this can only be good for the overall BC and Canadian economies.
“But for administrations to achieve this in major cities around the word, not just Victoria, we have to act now,” Lucey says. “And we have to change our fundamental economic thinking around sustainable urban development and renewal. It’s not about cost . . . It’s about building in profitability.”
The Vancouver plan also highlights western North America’s political dichotomy, by bringing together what Lucey calls the two ‘book ends’ of the political and regional spectrum – California’s Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and BC’s Liberal Premier Campbell.
“But both administrations, and those of Oregon, Idaho and Washington State, know California and the Pacific North West is the world’s 8th largest trading bloc, and the entire region can benefit from sustainability plans driven from both ends,” Lucey says.
“Schwarzenegger is charging head on sustainability issues in his State, and it looks as though BC is set to do the same.
“Damaged ecologies, and economies, can be turned around quickly when all parties work on the understanding that this has nothing to do with politics. It’s just about the money . . .”
(This aricle is yet to be published)
Canada’s Green Building Council – an alliance of urban design, architectural, engineering and environmental groups and practitioners – is advocating a radical urban development plan for the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island.
One that revolves around a single, amoral, politically inert common denominator: money. Or, more precisely, profitability.
To date, Victoria, a city of almost 600,000 residents, has been pumping its raw sewerage and stormwater runoff directly into the North Eastern Pacific Ocean.
In June (2007), a British Columbia Provincial Government report underscored the city’s increasingly embarrassing sewerage problem, leading to a conventional proposal to build one large and several satellite sewerage treatment plants, estimated to cost some $Cn1.2 billion dollars for the plants and associated infrastructure.
The Canadian Government, the Provincial Government of Premier Gordon Campbell and the city would need to finance the proposal in equal thirds.
However, the Green Building Council has proposed a different, profit-driven approach, designed to combine ecological restoration and social equity in a fresh city-wide design.
It believes the city could be making $Cn300 million a year within the next few years from its waste, and by slashing water costs by harvesting rainwater and recycling.
The Council says Premier Campbell’s Government and the city are “extremely interested”.
Simply, the Council believes Victoria can be recycling sewerage into bio-fuels for heating and transport, and boosting water supplies by harvesting and using rainwater while recycling as much water as possible. Its plan, based on existing technology, was devised in little more than 60 days.
It also believes greenfield commercial and residential property developers – as well as property redevelopers – can look to charging a ‘green premium’ for ecologically sustainable projects incorporating these and other sustainable design elements.
As the population of the greater Vancouver area nudges 2.3 million, this proposition appears increasingly appealing, not only to Canadians and their governments, but to other major centres throughout the Cascadia region (stretching from California in the south, through Oregon, Idaho and Washington State, up into BC).
According to Patrick Lucey, senior aquatic ecologist with Aqua-Tex Scientific Consulting, one of the groups within the Green Building Council, this fresh approach would remove much of the sting from the polarising political and scientific debate surrounding sustainability with a single stroke.
“By pursuing a policy of integrated resource recovery, there are no downsides – only the advantage of being able to tap into nature’s ongoing revenue stream,” Lucey says.
”Also, those companies involved in manufacturing and marketing recycling and environmental products wouldn’t need to worry about being seen on one side or the other of this debate. They – like Victoria – could simply get on with the business of making money.
“Most of these companies, for a variety of political and business reasons, don’t want to openly back either side of the sustainability argument. However, once the debate is reduced to a compelling economic reason to embrace sustainability, they can engage whole-heartedly.”
In Sydney recently for the Rainwater and Urban Planning 2007 conference (which attracted 330 delegates from 47 countries), Lucey says by using ‘plug-and-play technology’, Victoria could minimise future environmental risks while extending a financially sound, decentralised city plan.
“Within the next 6-9 months we will produce a city-wide, sustainable design that could be delivering positive results to Victoria within two years,” he says.
According to Lucey and Aqua-Tex’s freshwater ecologist, Cori Barraclough (also involved with the growing annual Canadian Gaining Ground sustainable urban development summit), such financially based ecological change management represents “a new age of enlightenment” for fast-growing urban areas like Victoria.
The end result? The Council says environmentally appealing developments will be worth more financially on the open real estate market, attracting higher initial returns, while delivering longer-term lower running and maintenance costs.
At the conference, research by Associate Professor Peter Coombes from University of Newcastle revealed that inclusion of decentralized water intervention strategies to combat deterioration of infrastructure will reduce asset replacement and operational costs as well as environmental impacts of a metropolis over time.
On the political side, Premier Campbell is a convinced man on a mission. He believes Victoria can change from being an overall cost-centred polluter to being a profit-making recycler in less than five years. And the more appealing the city, the more growth and income it can generate.
The Green Building Council believes Victoria can expect to double in size comfortably in the decades ahead if it embraces sustainability. Both Lucey and Barraclough say this can only be good for the overall BC and Canadian economies.
“But for administrations to achieve this in major cities around the word, not just Victoria, we have to act now,” Lucey says. “And we have to change our fundamental economic thinking around sustainable urban development and renewal. It’s not about cost . . . It’s about building in profitability.”
The Vancouver plan also highlights western North America’s political dichotomy, by bringing together what Lucey calls the two ‘book ends’ of the political and regional spectrum – California’s Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and BC’s Liberal Premier Campbell.
“But both administrations, and those of Oregon, Idaho and Washington State, know California and the Pacific North West is the world’s 8th largest trading bloc, and the entire region can benefit from sustainability plans driven from both ends,” Lucey says.
“Schwarzenegger is charging head on sustainability issues in his State, and it looks as though BC is set to do the same.
“Damaged ecologies, and economies, can be turned around quickly when all parties work on the understanding that this has nothing to do with politics. It’s just about the money . . .”
Melbourne commercial buildings set new dry benchmarks
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Melbourne has been leading Australia’s charge towards commercial ‘dry buildings’ – buildings that are cutting substantially their demand for precious mains fresh water.
And if these so-called dry buildings have talismans, Carlton’s 60L Green Building, the City of Melbourne’s CH2 headquarters in Collins Street and the Szencorp Building on Albert Road seem to be leading that charge.
Although coming only knee-high to its neighbours in Leicester Street, the four-storey 60L building is claimed to set a range of significant water management benchmarks.
What’s more, its developers, the Green Building Partnership of Surrowee Pty Ltd and Green Projects Pty Ltd, set out to achieve maximum sustainability within standard commercial building budgets.
With 13 tenants, including the Australian Conservation Foundation, occupying 60L, and a jostling waiting list of more than 25 hopefuls, the developers believe they have proven the desirability of green commercial developments.
They also believe green, dry buildings like 60L can generate 30 per cent premiums for developers and owners, adding further weight to the argument that stepping beyond conventional development makes long-term financial and investment sense.
The Green Building Partnership says 60L is living up to day-to-day operating expectations, particularly with water management.
“Since the building opened back in October 2002, Melbourne has experienced one of its driest periods on record,” 60L project manager, Alistair Mailer says. “Yet we still have managed to reduce water consumption on comparable-sized buildings by an average of 80 per cent a year.”
A combination of efficient devices – including ‘green’ showerheads, waterless urinals and low-flush toilets – along with collecting rainwater falling on the building’s roof is helping to drive towards complete mains water replacement where possible.
Rainwater collected on the building’s 1000 square metre roof is fed into two 10,000 litre tanks on the ground floor, and this is topped up, when required, with mains water. At present, about 75 per cent of all rain falling on the building is collected, and the aim is to lift this to 95 per cent.
All water collected is filtered and sterilised, and used in low-flow taps and showers.
In an average-rainfall year, 60L is expected to collect 500 kilolitres of water, more than enough to allow it to be completely free of mains water use.
All grey and black water is also recycled and treated for use in toilet flushing and irrigating the rooftop gardens.
“In an average rainfall year, the only mains water required is that used to test the fire sprinker system, and we plan soon to recycle this too,” Mailer says. While not a large volume by many commercial building standards, a typical weekly test uses about 500 litres of fresh water.
Interestingly, the volume of fresh water flushed throughout Melbourne every week remains a mystery, as fire sprinkler water isn’t metered.
60L’s sewerage treatment plant is also about to come online, having gone through extensive recalibration, and this water also will be used for further toilet flushing.
“Prospective tenants are interested in 60L for a range of reasons, including a general recognition that we all need to be friendlier to our environment, that green buildings are more pleasant places to work in and that they help generate a more productive workforce,” Mailer says.
But 60L isn’t the only green development in Melbourne.
The CH2 redevelopment of Melbourne City Council’s headquarters, despite criticisms a year after opening that it’s not quite as green as proposed, is also water efficient.
Home to 540 staff, this 10-storey building cost almost $30 million to redevelop, with a further $11.3 million spent on sustainability features, the building’s planners say should pay for themselves within 10 years.
So far, mains water consumption has been slashed 72 per cent, courtesy of water ‘mining’ and treatment of some 100,000 litres of black water from Melbourne’s sewers.
Coupled with rainwater harvesting, this treated water is being used for all non-drinking water purposes, including the building’s cooling system, toilet flushing and landscape watering.
Surplus water is provided to other buildings, and is used in fountains, for street cleaning and further plant irrigation.
Recycling of the building’s fire sprinkler water provides 25 per cent of all potable water.
Meanwhile over at the Szencorp Building, at 40 Albert Road (first built in 1987, and recycled to provide a Six-Star Office Design rating from the Green Building Council of Australia), the owners are claiming an 82 per cent reduction in mains water use and a 72 per cent drop in sewerage discharge.
As with other green buildings, this multi-award-winning project has achieved this water saving through combining rainwater, grey water and black water harvesting, treatment and reuse for toilet flushing, and the use of low-flow taps, waterless urinals and dual-flush toilets.
As Australia’s commercial buildings are expected to generate about 20 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions within the next three years, it makes environmental sense to reduce power and water consumption, Szencorp says.
“One of the primary goals of building green is to reduce the life-cycle cost of a building through significant energy savings as well as through increased production of the building’s users,” the company says.
“This means that over the life of the building, most if not all additional green costs will be recovered. It is anticipated that, as with anything new and different, costs will decrease over time as green design and construction become commonplace.”
According to Rob Adams, designer of CH2 and director of design and culture for the City Of Melbourne, the race is now on around Australia to produce increasingly sustainable commercial buildings.
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Melbourne has been leading Australia’s charge towards commercial ‘dry buildings’ – buildings that are cutting substantially their demand for precious mains fresh water.
And if these so-called dry buildings have talismans, Carlton’s 60L Green Building, the City of Melbourne’s CH2 headquarters in Collins Street and the Szencorp Building on Albert Road seem to be leading that charge.
Although coming only knee-high to its neighbours in Leicester Street, the four-storey 60L building is claimed to set a range of significant water management benchmarks.
What’s more, its developers, the Green Building Partnership of Surrowee Pty Ltd and Green Projects Pty Ltd, set out to achieve maximum sustainability within standard commercial building budgets.
With 13 tenants, including the Australian Conservation Foundation, occupying 60L, and a jostling waiting list of more than 25 hopefuls, the developers believe they have proven the desirability of green commercial developments.
They also believe green, dry buildings like 60L can generate 30 per cent premiums for developers and owners, adding further weight to the argument that stepping beyond conventional development makes long-term financial and investment sense.
The Green Building Partnership says 60L is living up to day-to-day operating expectations, particularly with water management.
“Since the building opened back in October 2002, Melbourne has experienced one of its driest periods on record,” 60L project manager, Alistair Mailer says. “Yet we still have managed to reduce water consumption on comparable-sized buildings by an average of 80 per cent a year.”
A combination of efficient devices – including ‘green’ showerheads, waterless urinals and low-flush toilets – along with collecting rainwater falling on the building’s roof is helping to drive towards complete mains water replacement where possible.
Rainwater collected on the building’s 1000 square metre roof is fed into two 10,000 litre tanks on the ground floor, and this is topped up, when required, with mains water. At present, about 75 per cent of all rain falling on the building is collected, and the aim is to lift this to 95 per cent.
All water collected is filtered and sterilised, and used in low-flow taps and showers.
In an average-rainfall year, 60L is expected to collect 500 kilolitres of water, more than enough to allow it to be completely free of mains water use.
All grey and black water is also recycled and treated for use in toilet flushing and irrigating the rooftop gardens.
“In an average rainfall year, the only mains water required is that used to test the fire sprinker system, and we plan soon to recycle this too,” Mailer says. While not a large volume by many commercial building standards, a typical weekly test uses about 500 litres of fresh water.
Interestingly, the volume of fresh water flushed throughout Melbourne every week remains a mystery, as fire sprinkler water isn’t metered.
60L’s sewerage treatment plant is also about to come online, having gone through extensive recalibration, and this water also will be used for further toilet flushing.
“Prospective tenants are interested in 60L for a range of reasons, including a general recognition that we all need to be friendlier to our environment, that green buildings are more pleasant places to work in and that they help generate a more productive workforce,” Mailer says.
But 60L isn’t the only green development in Melbourne.
The CH2 redevelopment of Melbourne City Council’s headquarters, despite criticisms a year after opening that it’s not quite as green as proposed, is also water efficient.
Home to 540 staff, this 10-storey building cost almost $30 million to redevelop, with a further $11.3 million spent on sustainability features, the building’s planners say should pay for themselves within 10 years.
So far, mains water consumption has been slashed 72 per cent, courtesy of water ‘mining’ and treatment of some 100,000 litres of black water from Melbourne’s sewers.
Coupled with rainwater harvesting, this treated water is being used for all non-drinking water purposes, including the building’s cooling system, toilet flushing and landscape watering.
Surplus water is provided to other buildings, and is used in fountains, for street cleaning and further plant irrigation.
Recycling of the building’s fire sprinkler water provides 25 per cent of all potable water.
Meanwhile over at the Szencorp Building, at 40 Albert Road (first built in 1987, and recycled to provide a Six-Star Office Design rating from the Green Building Council of Australia), the owners are claiming an 82 per cent reduction in mains water use and a 72 per cent drop in sewerage discharge.
As with other green buildings, this multi-award-winning project has achieved this water saving through combining rainwater, grey water and black water harvesting, treatment and reuse for toilet flushing, and the use of low-flow taps, waterless urinals and dual-flush toilets.
As Australia’s commercial buildings are expected to generate about 20 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions within the next three years, it makes environmental sense to reduce power and water consumption, Szencorp says.
“One of the primary goals of building green is to reduce the life-cycle cost of a building through significant energy savings as well as through increased production of the building’s users,” the company says.
“This means that over the life of the building, most if not all additional green costs will be recovered. It is anticipated that, as with anything new and different, costs will decrease over time as green design and construction become commonplace.”
According to Rob Adams, designer of CH2 and director of design and culture for the City Of Melbourne, the race is now on around Australia to produce increasingly sustainable commercial buildings.
Independent water scientist slams reports of lead in tank water
By Pete Heininger
One of Australia’s leading independent water scientists has slammed persistent Australia-wide ‘scare campaign’ media reports claiming that water held in rainwater tanks is contaminated with lead and other metal contaminants.
Dr Peter Coombes, an Associate Professor of integrated water cycle management at the University of Newcastle, and an Associate Professor of chemistry and molecular engineering at the University of Melbourne, says claims made about recent Monash University research into lead and other metals in tank water are “a misrepresentation of their (the university and CSIRO) research”.
“The Monash study actually sampled from the sludge in the bottom of tanks not from the rainwater held in the tanks,” Dr Coombes says.
“I have completed more than 10 years’ research into rainwater quality processes – published in more than 100 scientific publications – and have found that a number of elements accumulate in the sludge at the bottom of tanks, and that this sludge layer, or biofilm, acts to clean the water. Only rarely is this sludge disturbed and enters the rainwater supply.”
Dr Coombes says his research groups have completed Australia-wide sampling and analysis programs (including an ongoing study of up to 100 tanks in five States.
“We always find metals in the sludge, but rarely in the rainwater supply at levels greater than health guidelines,” he says. “And in those rare cases where metals in rainwater exceed these guidelines, simply fitting filters to drinking water taps is a remedy.”
Dr Coombes says about 1.2 million Australians rely solely on tanks for drinking water without widespread health concerns. What’s more, drinking water accounts for less than 2 per cent of household water use.
“Obviously, society can benefit widely from tank water, and tanks can help reduce demands on regional water resources,” he says.
Dr Coombes also says levels of metals found rainwater tank sludge are “less than or similar” to metal levels found in the biofilms of mains water distribution pipes and in the base of pressure reservoirs.
“Importantly, these ‘contaminants’ are also found in systems that deliver mains water to households,” he says. “The key issue in both the rainwater and mains water systems is that the metals aren’t in the water supply to the taps in houses.
“It’s also important to understand how Australian Drinking Water guidelines work: health levels for elements and metals are set consistently high for a particular element because long-term exposure to this type of level of contamination may lead to a build up of toxins in the human body.
“While consistently exceeding these guidelines is a potential health problem, single cases of exceeding guidelines do not constitute a health hazard.”
Dr Coombes says “vested interests” with the Australian water industry are keen to criticise rainwater tanks and their popularity.
“Tanks form part of decentralised water management strategies that run counter to the water business-as-usual monopoly structures that see major water authorities maintain control over the collection and distribution of mains water,” he says.
By Pete Heininger
One of Australia’s leading independent water scientists has slammed persistent Australia-wide ‘scare campaign’ media reports claiming that water held in rainwater tanks is contaminated with lead and other metal contaminants.
Dr Peter Coombes, an Associate Professor of integrated water cycle management at the University of Newcastle, and an Associate Professor of chemistry and molecular engineering at the University of Melbourne, says claims made about recent Monash University research into lead and other metals in tank water are “a misrepresentation of their (the university and CSIRO) research”.
“The Monash study actually sampled from the sludge in the bottom of tanks not from the rainwater held in the tanks,” Dr Coombes says.
“I have completed more than 10 years’ research into rainwater quality processes – published in more than 100 scientific publications – and have found that a number of elements accumulate in the sludge at the bottom of tanks, and that this sludge layer, or biofilm, acts to clean the water. Only rarely is this sludge disturbed and enters the rainwater supply.”
Dr Coombes says his research groups have completed Australia-wide sampling and analysis programs (including an ongoing study of up to 100 tanks in five States.
“We always find metals in the sludge, but rarely in the rainwater supply at levels greater than health guidelines,” he says. “And in those rare cases where metals in rainwater exceed these guidelines, simply fitting filters to drinking water taps is a remedy.”
Dr Coombes says about 1.2 million Australians rely solely on tanks for drinking water without widespread health concerns. What’s more, drinking water accounts for less than 2 per cent of household water use.
“Obviously, society can benefit widely from tank water, and tanks can help reduce demands on regional water resources,” he says.
Dr Coombes also says levels of metals found rainwater tank sludge are “less than or similar” to metal levels found in the biofilms of mains water distribution pipes and in the base of pressure reservoirs.
“Importantly, these ‘contaminants’ are also found in systems that deliver mains water to households,” he says. “The key issue in both the rainwater and mains water systems is that the metals aren’t in the water supply to the taps in houses.
“It’s also important to understand how Australian Drinking Water guidelines work: health levels for elements and metals are set consistently high for a particular element because long-term exposure to this type of level of contamination may lead to a build up of toxins in the human body.
“While consistently exceeding these guidelines is a potential health problem, single cases of exceeding guidelines do not constitute a health hazard.”
Dr Coombes says “vested interests” with the Australian water industry are keen to criticise rainwater tanks and their popularity.
“Tanks form part of decentralised water management strategies that run counter to the water business-as-usual monopoly structures that see major water authorities maintain control over the collection and distribution of mains water,” he says.
Let there be light
(This article was published in Future Living magazine)
Light, as a fundamental building block in modern Australian sustainable residential architecture, is vital.
As long-standing architectural commentator, and editor of Masters Of Light: Designing The Luminous House Peter Hyatt sees it, Australia has an abundance of space and light, both of which have been squandered in spades throughout much of the past 220 years of white settlement.
Both are intertwined; more thoughtful use of space allows us to maximise light’s benefits, while light enables us to better shape the way we use space in built environments. And as we increasingly recognise the importance of sustainability in residential design, light – and its thoughtful application – comes to the fore.
Hyatt, like so many of Australia’s leading architects, sees light as the starting point and basic building block of all architecture and building design.
“Architects have a leading role to play in ensuring the most efficient use of materials and resources for our built environment,” he says. “The profession needs to lead by example to provide housing that consumes less and delivers more. Light provides a brilliant means of navigation to show the way. Light and temperature work together; to design well with light and shade provides both opportunity and shelter.”
With an increasing number of local and international studies pointing to higher morale, productivity and occupational health when employees are exposed to natural light in workplace buildings, Hyatt stresses our housing should deliver similar benefits.
One difficulty of light, though, is that its omnipresence renders it consistently misunderstood. The effective use of light in housing design, as in commercial design, delivers material and operating efficiencies. The correct play of light warms spaces when required and can be managed to deliver optimum illumination while minimising heat gain.
Low-emission glazing, coupled with better ventilation, results in healthier, sustainable housing. Glass can now deliver a sense of environmental immediacy or contribute to a feeling of distance, depending on levels of transparency and opacity. And properly shaded walls and windows can help lower mechanical heating and artificial lighting requirements.
“In the process of ‘opening’ to light and shade, the most efficient houses now ventilate so well there’s little need of mechanical heating and cooling – a major contributor now to Australia’s burgeoning greenhouse gas production,” Hyatt says.
As architects around the world grapple with issues of light and housing efficiency, trying to harness the vagaries of space and light in specific environments, it’s inevitable that we’ll find parallels among much of their work.
While renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has been working for some 20 years to design lightweight, light-filled housing that doesn’t cost the earth, Australian architects like Ed Lippmann have also been working on this side of the world to address similar issues.
“Sydney’s climate is perfectly suited to the ‘loose fit’ steel and glass pavilions I have been designing for the past 20 years,” Lippmanns says. “Such houses are well suited to Sydney’s climate. We want a connection between inside and outside. We live on decks, patios and in courtyards as much as we live in internal rooms, and (my) houses encourage the connection between our inner and outer worlds.”
Lippmann, winner of multiple architectural awards over this period, says modern building materials help enormously, as they can now span greater spaces, helping to harness and temper the effects of our strong southern sun.
David Melocco, of Sydney architectural practice Melocco & Moore, says the first thing he does when visiting a client’s site – for either a new house or renovation – is to locate true north.
“You need to determine all opportunities for maximising this northern natural light, and for orientating main living spaces to take advantage of this light,” he says. “This isn’t always possible, in which case we have to look for opportunities to bring light – zenith light – in through the roof.”
Northern aspects should be used for introducing natural light into high-traffic areas of a home, which, in turn, can lead out onto a rear desk or balcony designed to take advantage of the same light.
On one particular Balmain development, Melocco was able to push light through an upper-level bank of clerestory windows, throwing it not only into the upper-level rear rooms, but also down into the shaded backyard.
But if all this sounds ethereal, let’s consider the practical side of home design, and its effects on natural and artificial lighting. While good design and lighting can affect our sense of well being, they will – increasingly over time – benefit our hip pockets.
Despite current vagaries of Australia’s housing prices, our homes are not only places in which we live, they are invariably our biggest single long-term investments. While commentators like Hyatt say not all good, sustainable housing design will be cheap, poorly designed housing will always end up being expensive to run.
What we do now to help ‘future proof’ our housing stock against the effects of climate change and the inevitable rise in energy costs could well help determine homes’ appeal to future owners. Given that we tend to buy and sell homes, on average, every seven to 10 years, we need to ensure we aren’t building in energy-guzzling obsolescence.
And with the average Australian household spending upwards of $1600 a year on energy – 11 per cent of which goes into artificial lighting – anything we can save on climbing energy costs can be ploughed back into mortgage payments. We’ll also be cutting back on greenhouse gases; the average Australian family produces eight tonnes of these a year through energy consumption, and 1 tonne of the stuff is enough to fill the average three-bedroom house to the gunnels!
“We try, wherever possible, to steer clients away from low-voltage halogen downlights,” Melocco says. “They are enormous consumers of energy, and can easily be replaced by more thoughtful solutions.”
A 50W halogen lamp, including its transformer, can use 65W of power – more than a standard 60W incandescent globe. What’s more, 8-10 such downlights can use up to eight times the energy used to light a single well-placed ceiling-mounted light fitting.
Melocco says his firm uses a combination of lighting solutions, including wall-mounted uplights that reflect light from ceiling areas to help create evening ambience, and lighting recessed behind pelmets. “There are more and more energy-efficient lighting systems and lamps hitting the market all the time,” he says, “so there’s no need for halogen downlights. Good examples are some of the compact fluorescent lights now available.”
But be warned . . . There are ‘good’ compact fluorescents and ‘not-so-good’ versions. “You’ll find some compacts take a while to fire up, and give off a sickly ‘cold’ white light that lacks the richness many of us expect from good lighting,” Melocco says. “However, compact fluorescents are getting better, and when used in certain light fittings – where you allow the shade to create lighting richness – they are ideal.”
We’re also seeing excellent light-emitting diode (LED) lights hitting the market, and while the best are still expensive, prices are falling. These lights are even more energy-efficient than compact fluros and can last many times longer, making them cost-effective longer term.
But Melocco and other architects have yet to be convinced of the need for fully automated residential energy systems, which can also play a part in switching lights on and off throughout a home. “Much of this technology, I believe, could be obsolete within 10 years, replaced by even better systems, so I wonder about needing to add more questionable expense to a building or renovation project,” Melocco says.
With many architects preaching sustainability, advocating that optimum medium-density housing should allocate 50 square metres per person, using discipline and switching lights off manually as you leave a room is just as effective. Automated systems – now supplied by most lighting component manufacturers – can be argued for in larger houses, but they could be overkill in smaller inner-city homes.
And when moving to outdoor areas, consider the huge variety of low-energy external lighting fixtures – and wherever possible, fit movement sensors that automate lighting.
(This article was published in Future Living magazine)
Light, as a fundamental building block in modern Australian sustainable residential architecture, is vital.
As long-standing architectural commentator, and editor of Masters Of Light: Designing The Luminous House Peter Hyatt sees it, Australia has an abundance of space and light, both of which have been squandered in spades throughout much of the past 220 years of white settlement.
Both are intertwined; more thoughtful use of space allows us to maximise light’s benefits, while light enables us to better shape the way we use space in built environments. And as we increasingly recognise the importance of sustainability in residential design, light – and its thoughtful application – comes to the fore.
Hyatt, like so many of Australia’s leading architects, sees light as the starting point and basic building block of all architecture and building design.
“Architects have a leading role to play in ensuring the most efficient use of materials and resources for our built environment,” he says. “The profession needs to lead by example to provide housing that consumes less and delivers more. Light provides a brilliant means of navigation to show the way. Light and temperature work together; to design well with light and shade provides both opportunity and shelter.”
With an increasing number of local and international studies pointing to higher morale, productivity and occupational health when employees are exposed to natural light in workplace buildings, Hyatt stresses our housing should deliver similar benefits.
One difficulty of light, though, is that its omnipresence renders it consistently misunderstood. The effective use of light in housing design, as in commercial design, delivers material and operating efficiencies. The correct play of light warms spaces when required and can be managed to deliver optimum illumination while minimising heat gain.
Low-emission glazing, coupled with better ventilation, results in healthier, sustainable housing. Glass can now deliver a sense of environmental immediacy or contribute to a feeling of distance, depending on levels of transparency and opacity. And properly shaded walls and windows can help lower mechanical heating and artificial lighting requirements.
“In the process of ‘opening’ to light and shade, the most efficient houses now ventilate so well there’s little need of mechanical heating and cooling – a major contributor now to Australia’s burgeoning greenhouse gas production,” Hyatt says.
As architects around the world grapple with issues of light and housing efficiency, trying to harness the vagaries of space and light in specific environments, it’s inevitable that we’ll find parallels among much of their work.
While renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has been working for some 20 years to design lightweight, light-filled housing that doesn’t cost the earth, Australian architects like Ed Lippmann have also been working on this side of the world to address similar issues.
“Sydney’s climate is perfectly suited to the ‘loose fit’ steel and glass pavilions I have been designing for the past 20 years,” Lippmanns says. “Such houses are well suited to Sydney’s climate. We want a connection between inside and outside. We live on decks, patios and in courtyards as much as we live in internal rooms, and (my) houses encourage the connection between our inner and outer worlds.”
Lippmann, winner of multiple architectural awards over this period, says modern building materials help enormously, as they can now span greater spaces, helping to harness and temper the effects of our strong southern sun.
David Melocco, of Sydney architectural practice Melocco & Moore, says the first thing he does when visiting a client’s site – for either a new house or renovation – is to locate true north.
“You need to determine all opportunities for maximising this northern natural light, and for orientating main living spaces to take advantage of this light,” he says. “This isn’t always possible, in which case we have to look for opportunities to bring light – zenith light – in through the roof.”
Northern aspects should be used for introducing natural light into high-traffic areas of a home, which, in turn, can lead out onto a rear desk or balcony designed to take advantage of the same light.
On one particular Balmain development, Melocco was able to push light through an upper-level bank of clerestory windows, throwing it not only into the upper-level rear rooms, but also down into the shaded backyard.
But if all this sounds ethereal, let’s consider the practical side of home design, and its effects on natural and artificial lighting. While good design and lighting can affect our sense of well being, they will – increasingly over time – benefit our hip pockets.
Despite current vagaries of Australia’s housing prices, our homes are not only places in which we live, they are invariably our biggest single long-term investments. While commentators like Hyatt say not all good, sustainable housing design will be cheap, poorly designed housing will always end up being expensive to run.
What we do now to help ‘future proof’ our housing stock against the effects of climate change and the inevitable rise in energy costs could well help determine homes’ appeal to future owners. Given that we tend to buy and sell homes, on average, every seven to 10 years, we need to ensure we aren’t building in energy-guzzling obsolescence.
And with the average Australian household spending upwards of $1600 a year on energy – 11 per cent of which goes into artificial lighting – anything we can save on climbing energy costs can be ploughed back into mortgage payments. We’ll also be cutting back on greenhouse gases; the average Australian family produces eight tonnes of these a year through energy consumption, and 1 tonne of the stuff is enough to fill the average three-bedroom house to the gunnels!
“We try, wherever possible, to steer clients away from low-voltage halogen downlights,” Melocco says. “They are enormous consumers of energy, and can easily be replaced by more thoughtful solutions.”
A 50W halogen lamp, including its transformer, can use 65W of power – more than a standard 60W incandescent globe. What’s more, 8-10 such downlights can use up to eight times the energy used to light a single well-placed ceiling-mounted light fitting.
Melocco says his firm uses a combination of lighting solutions, including wall-mounted uplights that reflect light from ceiling areas to help create evening ambience, and lighting recessed behind pelmets. “There are more and more energy-efficient lighting systems and lamps hitting the market all the time,” he says, “so there’s no need for halogen downlights. Good examples are some of the compact fluorescent lights now available.”
But be warned . . . There are ‘good’ compact fluorescents and ‘not-so-good’ versions. “You’ll find some compacts take a while to fire up, and give off a sickly ‘cold’ white light that lacks the richness many of us expect from good lighting,” Melocco says. “However, compact fluorescents are getting better, and when used in certain light fittings – where you allow the shade to create lighting richness – they are ideal.”
We’re also seeing excellent light-emitting diode (LED) lights hitting the market, and while the best are still expensive, prices are falling. These lights are even more energy-efficient than compact fluros and can last many times longer, making them cost-effective longer term.
But Melocco and other architects have yet to be convinced of the need for fully automated residential energy systems, which can also play a part in switching lights on and off throughout a home. “Much of this technology, I believe, could be obsolete within 10 years, replaced by even better systems, so I wonder about needing to add more questionable expense to a building or renovation project,” Melocco says.
With many architects preaching sustainability, advocating that optimum medium-density housing should allocate 50 square metres per person, using discipline and switching lights off manually as you leave a room is just as effective. Automated systems – now supplied by most lighting component manufacturers – can be argued for in larger houses, but they could be overkill in smaller inner-city homes.
And when moving to outdoor areas, consider the huge variety of low-energy external lighting fixtures – and wherever possible, fit movement sensors that automate lighting.
Small suburban house yields impressive rainwater results
(This article is yet to be published)
Owners of a small suburban house in Newcastle have managed to cut their mains water use an average of 71 per cent a year, simply by installing rainwater tanks.
They’ve also reduced their home’s share of energy consumption by an average of 19 per cent a year, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions an average of 1.126 tonnes a year.
These savings have also delivered financial benefits. On average, the house saves $167 a year on water, $146 on power, and detergent costs have been cut more than $1000 a year.
Total savings over the past eight years have been more than $10,000, more than offsetting the initial costs of $3280 to install the tanks, pump and additional plumbing.
As a result, these statistics secured through monitoring the results of rainwater harvesting is casting serious doubts on the perceived need for major new dams or desalination plants, especially in our major cities.
The house, in the inner suburb of Carrington, is owned by one of Australia’s leading authorities on integrated water cycle management, Dr Peter Coombes, and his partner Janine.
Dr Coombes says it’s the longest-running monitoring exercise of its type ever undertaken in Australia, and points to way to significant environmental and financial benefits for any householders electing to fit rainwater tanks to their homes.
“We’ve been monitoring a range of issues – including water savings and our reduced demand for mains water, our reduced power consumption and the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions – for eight years, and the results are impressive,” Dr Coombes says.
“Based on my research, most Australians living in major cities and coastal regional centres could adequately reduce their demand for mains water by installing rainwater harvesting systems.”
An academic holding senior positions at both the University of Newcastle and the University of Melbourne, Dr Coombes says no other house in Australia has been as closely monitored – or for as long – when it comes to rainwater harvesting and its effects on water demand.
In recent months, courtesy of steady rain in Newcastle and the Hunter region, mains water demand at the Carrington house has been slashed to more than 98 per cent!
The only other concession to water saving is a 4A-rated front loading washing machine. Dr Coombes says that if he and Janine fitted a dishwasher, they may be able save even more water!
Dr Coombes, with more than 20 years experience in the field, knows his water.
He has served on the advisory panel to the National Water Commission, and was a member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council working group on Water for Cities. He has also been a member of the Victorian Government’s Our Water Our Future panel on alternative water sources and co-authored the Australian Runoff Quality report. He has recently been appointed a director Bonacci Water, a leading water cycle management consultancy based in Melbourne.
The first myths his research busts are that home owners need large roof areas or large tanks to benefit from rainwater harvesting.
The roof area of the Carrington home is only 95 square metres and the two tanks installed hold only 2200 litres each. These tanks are fitted with a mains water top-up system, ensuring the household never runs out of water. A small pump has been plumbed in to deliver water for all household uses, including drinking water.
The third myth Dr Coombes has busted is that tank water is unsafe to drink.
“With more than 3.2 million Australians relying every day on drinking water collected from roofs, the practice is, by and large, safe,” he says. “It wasn’t until centralised water infrastructure was developed last century tat streams and tanks ceased being the main source of household water throughout Australia.
“The main source of water-borne illness comes from contaminating drinking water with untreated sewage – and that was first demonstrated by renowned British scientist John Snow in London in the 1850s.”
Dr Coombes attributes the reduced water consumption, lower energy requirements and lower CO2 emissions to the lower energy used by the pump. As the pressure is lower than mains water pressure, tank water runs through the system at a rate of 8-9 litres a minute, compared with the 20 litres a minute of mains water.
“This slower flow means lower water-heating costs,” he says.
Dr Coombes says decentralised water management strategies deliver other clear benefits.
First, there’s lower demand for mains water, which can then cope with population increase. Second, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced because of lower energy requirements to process and pump less mains water, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. And third, there’s a tangible improvement in regional water security.
“Yet another benefit comes through reduced stormwater and sewage discharges,” Dr Coombes says.
“I believe the benefits most overlooked when considering rainwater harvesting are the reduction in mains water needed to service a city, savings that can be made through installing lighter stormwater and sewage infrastructure, and the combined values of these benefits to society and our various ecosystems.
“With very low catchment water levels throughout Australia, we need to consider implementing decentralised water-management systems, with as many households as possible using tank water, sooner rather than later.”
(This article is yet to be published)
Owners of a small suburban house in Newcastle have managed to cut their mains water use an average of 71 per cent a year, simply by installing rainwater tanks.
They’ve also reduced their home’s share of energy consumption by an average of 19 per cent a year, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions an average of 1.126 tonnes a year.
These savings have also delivered financial benefits. On average, the house saves $167 a year on water, $146 on power, and detergent costs have been cut more than $1000 a year.
Total savings over the past eight years have been more than $10,000, more than offsetting the initial costs of $3280 to install the tanks, pump and additional plumbing.
As a result, these statistics secured through monitoring the results of rainwater harvesting is casting serious doubts on the perceived need for major new dams or desalination plants, especially in our major cities.
The house, in the inner suburb of Carrington, is owned by one of Australia’s leading authorities on integrated water cycle management, Dr Peter Coombes, and his partner Janine.
Dr Coombes says it’s the longest-running monitoring exercise of its type ever undertaken in Australia, and points to way to significant environmental and financial benefits for any householders electing to fit rainwater tanks to their homes.
“We’ve been monitoring a range of issues – including water savings and our reduced demand for mains water, our reduced power consumption and the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions – for eight years, and the results are impressive,” Dr Coombes says.
“Based on my research, most Australians living in major cities and coastal regional centres could adequately reduce their demand for mains water by installing rainwater harvesting systems.”
An academic holding senior positions at both the University of Newcastle and the University of Melbourne, Dr Coombes says no other house in Australia has been as closely monitored – or for as long – when it comes to rainwater harvesting and its effects on water demand.
In recent months, courtesy of steady rain in Newcastle and the Hunter region, mains water demand at the Carrington house has been slashed to more than 98 per cent!
The only other concession to water saving is a 4A-rated front loading washing machine. Dr Coombes says that if he and Janine fitted a dishwasher, they may be able save even more water!
Dr Coombes, with more than 20 years experience in the field, knows his water.
He has served on the advisory panel to the National Water Commission, and was a member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council working group on Water for Cities. He has also been a member of the Victorian Government’s Our Water Our Future panel on alternative water sources and co-authored the Australian Runoff Quality report. He has recently been appointed a director Bonacci Water, a leading water cycle management consultancy based in Melbourne.
The first myths his research busts are that home owners need large roof areas or large tanks to benefit from rainwater harvesting.
The roof area of the Carrington home is only 95 square metres and the two tanks installed hold only 2200 litres each. These tanks are fitted with a mains water top-up system, ensuring the household never runs out of water. A small pump has been plumbed in to deliver water for all household uses, including drinking water.
The third myth Dr Coombes has busted is that tank water is unsafe to drink.
“With more than 3.2 million Australians relying every day on drinking water collected from roofs, the practice is, by and large, safe,” he says. “It wasn’t until centralised water infrastructure was developed last century tat streams and tanks ceased being the main source of household water throughout Australia.
“The main source of water-borne illness comes from contaminating drinking water with untreated sewage – and that was first demonstrated by renowned British scientist John Snow in London in the 1850s.”
Dr Coombes attributes the reduced water consumption, lower energy requirements and lower CO2 emissions to the lower energy used by the pump. As the pressure is lower than mains water pressure, tank water runs through the system at a rate of 8-9 litres a minute, compared with the 20 litres a minute of mains water.
“This slower flow means lower water-heating costs,” he says.
Dr Coombes says decentralised water management strategies deliver other clear benefits.
First, there’s lower demand for mains water, which can then cope with population increase. Second, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced because of lower energy requirements to process and pump less mains water, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. And third, there’s a tangible improvement in regional water security.
“Yet another benefit comes through reduced stormwater and sewage discharges,” Dr Coombes says.
“I believe the benefits most overlooked when considering rainwater harvesting are the reduction in mains water needed to service a city, savings that can be made through installing lighter stormwater and sewage infrastructure, and the combined values of these benefits to society and our various ecosystems.
“With very low catchment water levels throughout Australia, we need to consider implementing decentralised water-management systems, with as many households as possible using tank water, sooner rather than later.”
A fresh look at Adelaide’s water
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
AS MUCH of Australia’s collective environmental consciousness channels into plans to save South Australia’s precious Coorong wetlands at the mouth of the Murray River, the state of Adelaide’s deteriorating fresh water supplies lurks in the background.
Next to saving the Coorong wetlands and maintaining overall agricultural productivity of the entire Murray Darling Basin, the long-term future of Adelaide’s fresh water supplies stands as a one of the country’s most critical water-management issues.
If the driest capital city in the driest state on the driest continent on earth is expected to grow and prosper in the decades ahead, water experts say urgent action is needed on several fronts.
Already, water the city pumps from the Murray River – usually during summer months – is dangerously close to breaching acceptable World Health Organisation standards for salinity.
Adelaide pulls an average of 40 per cent of its fresh water, or about 64 gigalitres a year, from the Murray, but ongoing climate-change conditions could see this rise steadily in years to come.
Ironically, though, the CSIRO says Murray surface flows could fall as much as 20 per cent by 2030, and as much as 45 per cent by 2070.
John Argue, adjunct professor of water engineering at the University of South Australia’s Urban Water Resources Centres says these same conditions are also expected to slash 30 per cent from the city’s major reservoir supplies, in the Adelaide Hills, adding even more stress to overall supplies.
“But even if Adelaide could replace all the water it current draws from the Murray each year, it would have little or no affect on the health the Coorong,” Argue says. “These wetlands need at least 300 gigalitres flushing through them to remain healthy.”
He says these kinds of flows can only be achieved through better water and irrigation management further upstream in the Murray-Darling Basin. Further complicating Adelaide’s fresh-water issue is the longer-term need to stop seawater from flowing back up the Murray.
“As the river continues to dry, and nothing is done to better manage the entire basin, we could see seawater flow as far upstream as Murray Bridge,” Argue says. “This would have disastrous consequences on Adelaide’s fresh water supplies.”
SA’s Murray River Minister Karlene Maywald says recent winter rains helped lift recorded river inflows 25 gigalitres, to 300 gigalitres, but this isolated incident has done little to alleviate long-term supply pressures.
Although Peter Cosier, director of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, told a national Water Policy Summit in June that Adelaide residents have cut per capita water consumption from 500 litres a day to about 410 litres a day (South-East Queensland residents on draconian water restrictions use as little as 129 litres a day), Argue says these figures need clarification.
“Adelaide’s in-house water use is as low as 142 litres per person a day – in line with Queensland,” he says. “But the real ‘killer’ is our outdoor water use; we love our European-style gardens and green open spaces, and this accounts for most per-capita fresh water consumption.”
Some 57 gigalitres is used in-house, while 67 gigalitres is used every year on Adelaide gardens and open spaces, he says. Industry uses only 36 gigalitres.
The answer? Unfortunately there isn’t a single silver bullet, and a raft of experts – including Argue, Cosier and the late Professor Peter Cullen (considered one of Australia’s leading independent water experts, and a National Water Commissioner and member of the Wentworth Group) have all called for a combination of solutions.
These include replacing as much Murray River water as possible with desalinated water, rainwater collected in tanks, stormwater treated and stored as groundwater, and better water-sensitive urban design.
“However, the latter will be hard to achieve so long as fresh water remains relatively cheap in SA,” Argue says. Argue and long-time colleague, Associate Professor Peter Coombes - who holds positions at both the University of Newcastle and University of Melbourne, and is a director of the Bonacci Water consultancy in Melbourne – say domestic and industrial tanks will play an increasingly important role in harvesting water and decentralising control of water resources in the years ahead.
Both men also agree far more rain falls on Adelaide each year than the city uses, or can store at present. Coombes, who grew up near the Coorong, says an average of 160 gigalitres runs off Adelaide’s roofs, streets and other hard surfaces and out to sea every year.
“This represents an enormous wasted resource,” he says.
But Argue argues for caution on seeing rainwater tanks as an immediate solution. “Although we need them as part of an overall strategy for guaranteeing fresh water – and to allow Adelaide to grow in the years ahead – at the city’s rate of building about 8000 new homes a year, it would take us 50-60 years to complete this part of any plan,” he says.
Rainwater tanks have been mandated for all new homes for several years, and about 37 per cent of the city’s homes are fitted with them. However most are only used for gardening and other outdoor purposes.
Argue, Cosier and the late Cullen have all advocated desalination as a critical interim element in offsetting the estimated 29 gigalitre shortfall generated by climate change, although Argue says this could look different – and deliver different greenhouse gas emission levels – depending on where water was taken from.
“Instead of using seawater as proposed, we could desalinate Murray River water using less power and for a fraction of the cost,” he says. “We could even use similar technology to treat stormwater runoff or water used in our treatment works. This could then be stored in groundwater aquifers.”
Apart from water buy-back plans for further upstream to help boost Murray-Darling Basin flows, the SA government is pressing ahead with the 50 gigalitre-a-year (150 megalitres a day) $1.1 billion desalination plant at Port Stanvic.
With additional, promised federal government financial support, this could be expanded to deliver up to 300 megalitres a day. The Rann state government says another $260 million has been earmarked for catchment management, and $400 million is to be spent over the next four years on recycling initiatives in what state Treasurer Kevin Foley says this will be the largest single infrastructure investment in SA history.
“One concern I have is that desalination will be seen as solving Adelaide’s water problems to the extent the city will continue using water as it always has,” Argue says. “It also allows overall water management to stay under the control of SA Water and the state government. This, in turn, will allow the authorities to justify increasing the cost of water, with no serious consideration being given to long-term conservation measures.”
Argue says SA Water has been paying the state treasury $200 million to $300 million a year from revenues, and authorities wish to see this arrangement continue, even while encouraging the city’s growth to 1 ½ million people by 2050.
Whatever happens, though, Adelaide is on the brink of a fresh water crisis – one that sees 90 per cent of all water pumped from the Murray each year flowing out city taps. If salinity keeps rising, this water will become an increasingly undrinkable health hazard.
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
AS MUCH of Australia’s collective environmental consciousness channels into plans to save South Australia’s precious Coorong wetlands at the mouth of the Murray River, the state of Adelaide’s deteriorating fresh water supplies lurks in the background.
Next to saving the Coorong wetlands and maintaining overall agricultural productivity of the entire Murray Darling Basin, the long-term future of Adelaide’s fresh water supplies stands as a one of the country’s most critical water-management issues.
If the driest capital city in the driest state on the driest continent on earth is expected to grow and prosper in the decades ahead, water experts say urgent action is needed on several fronts.
Already, water the city pumps from the Murray River – usually during summer months – is dangerously close to breaching acceptable World Health Organisation standards for salinity.
Adelaide pulls an average of 40 per cent of its fresh water, or about 64 gigalitres a year, from the Murray, but ongoing climate-change conditions could see this rise steadily in years to come.
Ironically, though, the CSIRO says Murray surface flows could fall as much as 20 per cent by 2030, and as much as 45 per cent by 2070.
John Argue, adjunct professor of water engineering at the University of South Australia’s Urban Water Resources Centres says these same conditions are also expected to slash 30 per cent from the city’s major reservoir supplies, in the Adelaide Hills, adding even more stress to overall supplies.
“But even if Adelaide could replace all the water it current draws from the Murray each year, it would have little or no affect on the health the Coorong,” Argue says. “These wetlands need at least 300 gigalitres flushing through them to remain healthy.”
He says these kinds of flows can only be achieved through better water and irrigation management further upstream in the Murray-Darling Basin. Further complicating Adelaide’s fresh-water issue is the longer-term need to stop seawater from flowing back up the Murray.
“As the river continues to dry, and nothing is done to better manage the entire basin, we could see seawater flow as far upstream as Murray Bridge,” Argue says. “This would have disastrous consequences on Adelaide’s fresh water supplies.”
SA’s Murray River Minister Karlene Maywald says recent winter rains helped lift recorded river inflows 25 gigalitres, to 300 gigalitres, but this isolated incident has done little to alleviate long-term supply pressures.
Although Peter Cosier, director of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, told a national Water Policy Summit in June that Adelaide residents have cut per capita water consumption from 500 litres a day to about 410 litres a day (South-East Queensland residents on draconian water restrictions use as little as 129 litres a day), Argue says these figures need clarification.
“Adelaide’s in-house water use is as low as 142 litres per person a day – in line with Queensland,” he says. “But the real ‘killer’ is our outdoor water use; we love our European-style gardens and green open spaces, and this accounts for most per-capita fresh water consumption.”
Some 57 gigalitres is used in-house, while 67 gigalitres is used every year on Adelaide gardens and open spaces, he says. Industry uses only 36 gigalitres.
The answer? Unfortunately there isn’t a single silver bullet, and a raft of experts – including Argue, Cosier and the late Professor Peter Cullen (considered one of Australia’s leading independent water experts, and a National Water Commissioner and member of the Wentworth Group) have all called for a combination of solutions.
These include replacing as much Murray River water as possible with desalinated water, rainwater collected in tanks, stormwater treated and stored as groundwater, and better water-sensitive urban design.
“However, the latter will be hard to achieve so long as fresh water remains relatively cheap in SA,” Argue says. Argue and long-time colleague, Associate Professor Peter Coombes - who holds positions at both the University of Newcastle and University of Melbourne, and is a director of the Bonacci Water consultancy in Melbourne – say domestic and industrial tanks will play an increasingly important role in harvesting water and decentralising control of water resources in the years ahead.
Both men also agree far more rain falls on Adelaide each year than the city uses, or can store at present. Coombes, who grew up near the Coorong, says an average of 160 gigalitres runs off Adelaide’s roofs, streets and other hard surfaces and out to sea every year.
“This represents an enormous wasted resource,” he says.
But Argue argues for caution on seeing rainwater tanks as an immediate solution. “Although we need them as part of an overall strategy for guaranteeing fresh water – and to allow Adelaide to grow in the years ahead – at the city’s rate of building about 8000 new homes a year, it would take us 50-60 years to complete this part of any plan,” he says.
Rainwater tanks have been mandated for all new homes for several years, and about 37 per cent of the city’s homes are fitted with them. However most are only used for gardening and other outdoor purposes.
Argue, Cosier and the late Cullen have all advocated desalination as a critical interim element in offsetting the estimated 29 gigalitre shortfall generated by climate change, although Argue says this could look different – and deliver different greenhouse gas emission levels – depending on where water was taken from.
“Instead of using seawater as proposed, we could desalinate Murray River water using less power and for a fraction of the cost,” he says. “We could even use similar technology to treat stormwater runoff or water used in our treatment works. This could then be stored in groundwater aquifers.”
Apart from water buy-back plans for further upstream to help boost Murray-Darling Basin flows, the SA government is pressing ahead with the 50 gigalitre-a-year (150 megalitres a day) $1.1 billion desalination plant at Port Stanvic.
With additional, promised federal government financial support, this could be expanded to deliver up to 300 megalitres a day. The Rann state government says another $260 million has been earmarked for catchment management, and $400 million is to be spent over the next four years on recycling initiatives in what state Treasurer Kevin Foley says this will be the largest single infrastructure investment in SA history.
“One concern I have is that desalination will be seen as solving Adelaide’s water problems to the extent the city will continue using water as it always has,” Argue says. “It also allows overall water management to stay under the control of SA Water and the state government. This, in turn, will allow the authorities to justify increasing the cost of water, with no serious consideration being given to long-term conservation measures.”
Argue says SA Water has been paying the state treasury $200 million to $300 million a year from revenues, and authorities wish to see this arrangement continue, even while encouraging the city’s growth to 1 ½ million people by 2050.
Whatever happens, though, Adelaide is on the brink of a fresh water crisis – one that sees 90 per cent of all water pumped from the Murray each year flowing out city taps. If salinity keeps rising, this water will become an increasingly undrinkable health hazard.
Chancellery Building adds weight to university campus
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Our seats of higher learning often considered nurseries of next-generationsustainable architectural design more often than not fall down badly whenit comes to embracing these same principals in their own building designs. Here’s one modern university building that walks the walk handsomely.
What Queensland’s University of the Sunshine Coast lacks in size and history, it is quickly making up for in terms of environmentally sustainable design.
And unlike so many sprawling campuses around the world, this overall designis increasingly wedding this relatively new institution of 5000-plusstudents and staff firmly with place, its sub-tropical environment and aningrained sense of learning.
Central to this progressive plan is the most recent building, the university’s $12.5 million Chancellery, designed by Queensland architectural duo Kerry and Lindsay Clare, now of Architectus Sydney.
Following on EDS foundations laid down in the university's original greenfields concept, and reinforced by the Clares’ first efforts in designing the lightweight, timelessly modern Student Recreation Centre in 1997, the Chancellery now forms the epicentre of USC’s open, light-filled campus at Sippy Downs in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
As Adrian Boddy, senior lecturer of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, sees it: “Such an accessible building exemplifies [renowned international architect] Christopher Alexander¹s notion of university as a marketplace for learning.”
Rather than being weighed down by ponderous sandstone bocks or slabs of brutal masonry, the Clares’ Chancellery like their earlier recreation centre sits lightly in its environment, a mix of sustainable timber, exposed concrete and lightweight corrugated steel skins.
As leading Australian architectural commentator and author Peter Hyatt describes it: “The Chancellery is altogether more thoughtful than most higher-education campus buildings in this country, preferring to allow its lofty, but always approachable volumes, natural materials and daylight to do the talking. There is much less razzle-dazzle than a sense of continuity and connection.”
Hyatt, who has been following the SCU’s sustainable design from the outset more than a decade ago believes each additional new building adds to the campus’ overall environmental sustainable design.
Positioned directly opposite the university’s internationally acclaimed library building designed by fellow architects John Mainwaring and Lawrence Nield - coincidentally another steel-clad structure - the Chancellery exhibits a quintessentially Australian design calm and restraint and, in the process, achieves what Hyatt describes as “a parallel strength” that reinforces it own and overall campus sustainability.
The Chancellery underscores its sustainable credentials across three broad sweeps environmental, material, and long-term maintenance and running. It also bristles with industry awards that also reinforce these and general design credentials (see box).
The building with a total floor area of 4600 square metres houses the Chancellery itself, 14 tutorial rooms, 40 academic offices. 600 square metres of student services, a 251-seat theatre and a café. The Chancellery accommodates the vice chancellor, deputy and pro vice chancellors and the university’s council meeting rooms.
Rather than using circulation corridors between the chancellery offices, an indoor verandah has created a sky-lit multi-functional space that can be used for meetings or general university functions, the architects says.
“Generous covered outdoor spaces bring all of these varied uses together with clarity, and create a democratic environment for the 800 occupants, including students academics and research staff,” Architectus says.
The university’s overall environmentally sensitive design is central to theChancellery’s functionality. All offices and tutorial rooms are whatthe architects describe as “mixed mode”, operating without air conditioningfor most of the year. However, each room can be conditioned separately,helping to eliminate considerable unnecessary energy use. All corridors areexternal and the building’s theatre is cooled by a displacement air system.
“The contrast of the building’s materials and their ability to absorb orre-radiate sunlight is a large part of the architecture¹s sustainability,”Hyatt says. “Study and student breakout areas feature subdued darker tonesdrawn from the timber used, while the circulation areas make energy-efficient use of light-reflective surfaces.
The Chancellery’s orientation, with its north-south axis not only followsthe bigger campus plan, but allows the building to maximise light andbreezes, while helping to minimise energy consumption. Fenestration alongthe main street level is restrained, with steel-bladed “eyelids” above windows helping with solar gain throughout the year.
The windows themselves along this elevation, which links mainly to staff office and tutorial rooms, are modest. Combined with the taut steel skin, the Chancellery exudes functional elegance.
“The truth is that green is not so much a colour but a commitment,” Hyatt says. “And when it comes to sustainability, this building has delivered cost savings from its outset, and will continue saving the university on maintenance and running costs for years to come.”
*************
SUSTAINABILITY & DESIGN GONGS
The University of the Sunshine Coast’s Chancellery Building has secured abrace of major industry awards this year in recognition of overall sustainability and design innovations. These include:
* The 2008 Australian Institute of Architecture Queensland Harry S. Marks Award for Sustainable Architecture
* The 2008 AIA Colorbond Award For Steel Architecture
* The 2008 AIA Queensland Public Architecture Award
* The 2008 AIA Sunshine Coast Building of The Year Award
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Our seats of higher learning often considered nurseries of next-generationsustainable architectural design more often than not fall down badly whenit comes to embracing these same principals in their own building designs. Here’s one modern university building that walks the walk handsomely.
What Queensland’s University of the Sunshine Coast lacks in size and history, it is quickly making up for in terms of environmentally sustainable design.
And unlike so many sprawling campuses around the world, this overall designis increasingly wedding this relatively new institution of 5000-plusstudents and staff firmly with place, its sub-tropical environment and aningrained sense of learning.
Central to this progressive plan is the most recent building, the university’s $12.5 million Chancellery, designed by Queensland architectural duo Kerry and Lindsay Clare, now of Architectus Sydney.
Following on EDS foundations laid down in the university's original greenfields concept, and reinforced by the Clares’ first efforts in designing the lightweight, timelessly modern Student Recreation Centre in 1997, the Chancellery now forms the epicentre of USC’s open, light-filled campus at Sippy Downs in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
As Adrian Boddy, senior lecturer of architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, sees it: “Such an accessible building exemplifies [renowned international architect] Christopher Alexander¹s notion of university as a marketplace for learning.”
Rather than being weighed down by ponderous sandstone bocks or slabs of brutal masonry, the Clares’ Chancellery like their earlier recreation centre sits lightly in its environment, a mix of sustainable timber, exposed concrete and lightweight corrugated steel skins.
As leading Australian architectural commentator and author Peter Hyatt describes it: “The Chancellery is altogether more thoughtful than most higher-education campus buildings in this country, preferring to allow its lofty, but always approachable volumes, natural materials and daylight to do the talking. There is much less razzle-dazzle than a sense of continuity and connection.”
Hyatt, who has been following the SCU’s sustainable design from the outset more than a decade ago believes each additional new building adds to the campus’ overall environmental sustainable design.
Positioned directly opposite the university’s internationally acclaimed library building designed by fellow architects John Mainwaring and Lawrence Nield - coincidentally another steel-clad structure - the Chancellery exhibits a quintessentially Australian design calm and restraint and, in the process, achieves what Hyatt describes as “a parallel strength” that reinforces it own and overall campus sustainability.
The Chancellery underscores its sustainable credentials across three broad sweeps environmental, material, and long-term maintenance and running. It also bristles with industry awards that also reinforce these and general design credentials (see box).
The building with a total floor area of 4600 square metres houses the Chancellery itself, 14 tutorial rooms, 40 academic offices. 600 square metres of student services, a 251-seat theatre and a café. The Chancellery accommodates the vice chancellor, deputy and pro vice chancellors and the university’s council meeting rooms.
Rather than using circulation corridors between the chancellery offices, an indoor verandah has created a sky-lit multi-functional space that can be used for meetings or general university functions, the architects says.
“Generous covered outdoor spaces bring all of these varied uses together with clarity, and create a democratic environment for the 800 occupants, including students academics and research staff,” Architectus says.
The university’s overall environmentally sensitive design is central to theChancellery’s functionality. All offices and tutorial rooms are whatthe architects describe as “mixed mode”, operating without air conditioningfor most of the year. However, each room can be conditioned separately,helping to eliminate considerable unnecessary energy use. All corridors areexternal and the building’s theatre is cooled by a displacement air system.
“The contrast of the building’s materials and their ability to absorb orre-radiate sunlight is a large part of the architecture¹s sustainability,”Hyatt says. “Study and student breakout areas feature subdued darker tonesdrawn from the timber used, while the circulation areas make energy-efficient use of light-reflective surfaces.
The Chancellery’s orientation, with its north-south axis not only followsthe bigger campus plan, but allows the building to maximise light andbreezes, while helping to minimise energy consumption. Fenestration alongthe main street level is restrained, with steel-bladed “eyelids” above windows helping with solar gain throughout the year.
The windows themselves along this elevation, which links mainly to staff office and tutorial rooms, are modest. Combined with the taut steel skin, the Chancellery exudes functional elegance.
“The truth is that green is not so much a colour but a commitment,” Hyatt says. “And when it comes to sustainability, this building has delivered cost savings from its outset, and will continue saving the university on maintenance and running costs for years to come.”
*************
SUSTAINABILITY & DESIGN GONGS
The University of the Sunshine Coast’s Chancellery Building has secured abrace of major industry awards this year in recognition of overall sustainability and design innovations. These include:
* The 2008 Australian Institute of Architecture Queensland Harry S. Marks Award for Sustainable Architecture
* The 2008 AIA Colorbond Award For Steel Architecture
* The 2008 AIA Queensland Public Architecture Award
* The 2008 AIA Sunshine Coast Building of The Year Award
Re-evaluating green urban developments
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
A 77ha residential estate on Melbourne’s northern fringe looks set to revolutionise the way we design – and cost – green, water-saving developments.
Already some four years in the making, The Groves estate, near Mernda, is challenging conventional wisdom that going ‘green’ will ultimately cost more while delivering little physical difference compared with business-as-usual urban sprawl.
The site was recently acquired by Babcock & Brown Residential Land Partners from Elderslie Property Developments and Clough Land Developments.
Courtesy of an integrated water-sensitive urban design that has considered a raft of cascading effects from each allotment – and across the entire region – planners have modeled cost cuts of 28 per cent on planning Stage One of the $62.5 million greenfields development.
In the process, they have planned to reshape the landscape, potentially allowing for more saleable land. This planning will also ensure that eventual stormwater runoff from the 800-900 lot site will have little more impact than it did before development began.
According to consulting engineers, The Bonacci Group, initial higher planning costs will be more than offset by reduced landscaping and infrastructure costs coupled with generous stormwater offsets provided by Melbourne Water.
Bonacci valued conventional stormwater design for the estate at $557,000, some $49,000 less than its final water-sensitive urban design. However, once stormwater offsets of slightly more than $200,000 were applied, the final water-sensitive design costs came in at slightly more than $400,000.
Using modeling developed by Dr Peter Coombes and the University of Newcastle, the Bonacci Group plans to use The Groves estate as a benchmark for future water-sensitive urban estate design and to help develop standards for similar residential developments throughout Australia.
Software used for this modeling has been jointly developed by the university and the Co-Operative Research Centre for Catchment Hydrology, which ceased operating in 2005.
According to Coombes and Bonacci director, Geoff Foster, developers have to stop thinking purely in terms of initial cost when considering green estates and ‘dry’ buildings. They have to consider longer-term value propositions, in which each aspect of a development – including longer-term infrastructure and maintenance costs – are considered.
“Part of this value proposition is the additional premium those wanting to buy into developments like this are prepared to pay,” Coombes says. “We are already seeing premiums up to 30 per cent above conventional developments being paid for green and ‘dry’ developments in Melbourne.”
Benchmarking at The Groves could take another five years, Foster says, and is being monitored closely by local Whittlesea Council and Melbourne Water.
The first 100 allotments have already been developed, and the estate will eventually carry a school and limited commercial development.
The Groves has been designed from the ground up to be different. Although the estate will carry a mix of housing styles, 3000-litre rainwater tanks, and water-efficient appliances, toilets and showerheads have been mandated throughout.
These changes have allowed the developers to reshape the way water moves and will be used throughout the estate, substantially affecting overall design and cutting construction and infrastructure costs.
Mains water consumption will be 45 per cent less than on conventional developments, and stormwater runoff will be cut 65 per cent. Wastewater will be cut 24 per cent.
The overall quality of stormwater runoff is also planned to rise, with fewer pollutants expected to find their way into local waterways.
Instead of traditional wetlands, The Groves will incorporate bio-retention swales, small sediment basis, contour banks and so-called rain gardens.
The Bonacci Group has forecast peak stormwater runoff will be cut 67-89 per cent, while annual stormwater runoff will be cut almost 80 per cent.
“Our modeling also shows that peak day water demand will drop 20 per cent, while instantaneous water demand will fall more than 50 per cent,” Foster says. Annual mains water demand across The Groves will be cut almost 11 megalitres.”
Tanked rainwater will enable householders to flush toilets and water gardens without drawing heavily on mains water, creating further, long-term savings. The lower overall impact of stormwater and its improved quality will also add to these savings – for the estate and broader community.
Less stormwater runoff will allow for smaller stormwater infrastructure and associated lower maintenance costs.
“Almost all other requirements will be reduced compared with similar-sized conventional estates,” Foster says. “These will include smaller water-pumping stations, smaller water storage reservoirs, smaller water mains and lighter distribution infrastructure, and smaller downstream water management infrastructure.
“Each of these elements will help lower costs compared with those of conventional estates.”
Foster and Coombes say that with these savings already built into the model, the longer-term appeal of building on estates like The Groves can only strengthen – especially if or when mains water and sewerage treatment charges, and power charges rise to offset environmental impact.
Ironically, though, The Groves is surrounded by a number of conventional estates, designed and built around conventional wetlands, and conventional mains water, sewerage and stormwater infrastructure. This surrounding development will impact some of The Groves’ results.
“However, once The Groves has been monitored and we can use that performance data to develop regional-wide, water-sensitive urban design standards, we should start to see wholesale changes to everything from household water use through to infrastructure design,” Foster says.
“This will help generate enormous savings across the board, and can only reinforce the overall value proposition of green or ‘dry’ developments.”
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
A 77ha residential estate on Melbourne’s northern fringe looks set to revolutionise the way we design – and cost – green, water-saving developments.
Already some four years in the making, The Groves estate, near Mernda, is challenging conventional wisdom that going ‘green’ will ultimately cost more while delivering little physical difference compared with business-as-usual urban sprawl.
The site was recently acquired by Babcock & Brown Residential Land Partners from Elderslie Property Developments and Clough Land Developments.
Courtesy of an integrated water-sensitive urban design that has considered a raft of cascading effects from each allotment – and across the entire region – planners have modeled cost cuts of 28 per cent on planning Stage One of the $62.5 million greenfields development.
In the process, they have planned to reshape the landscape, potentially allowing for more saleable land. This planning will also ensure that eventual stormwater runoff from the 800-900 lot site will have little more impact than it did before development began.
According to consulting engineers, The Bonacci Group, initial higher planning costs will be more than offset by reduced landscaping and infrastructure costs coupled with generous stormwater offsets provided by Melbourne Water.
Bonacci valued conventional stormwater design for the estate at $557,000, some $49,000 less than its final water-sensitive urban design. However, once stormwater offsets of slightly more than $200,000 were applied, the final water-sensitive design costs came in at slightly more than $400,000.
Using modeling developed by Dr Peter Coombes and the University of Newcastle, the Bonacci Group plans to use The Groves estate as a benchmark for future water-sensitive urban estate design and to help develop standards for similar residential developments throughout Australia.
Software used for this modeling has been jointly developed by the university and the Co-Operative Research Centre for Catchment Hydrology, which ceased operating in 2005.
According to Coombes and Bonacci director, Geoff Foster, developers have to stop thinking purely in terms of initial cost when considering green estates and ‘dry’ buildings. They have to consider longer-term value propositions, in which each aspect of a development – including longer-term infrastructure and maintenance costs – are considered.
“Part of this value proposition is the additional premium those wanting to buy into developments like this are prepared to pay,” Coombes says. “We are already seeing premiums up to 30 per cent above conventional developments being paid for green and ‘dry’ developments in Melbourne.”
Benchmarking at The Groves could take another five years, Foster says, and is being monitored closely by local Whittlesea Council and Melbourne Water.
The first 100 allotments have already been developed, and the estate will eventually carry a school and limited commercial development.
The Groves has been designed from the ground up to be different. Although the estate will carry a mix of housing styles, 3000-litre rainwater tanks, and water-efficient appliances, toilets and showerheads have been mandated throughout.
These changes have allowed the developers to reshape the way water moves and will be used throughout the estate, substantially affecting overall design and cutting construction and infrastructure costs.
Mains water consumption will be 45 per cent less than on conventional developments, and stormwater runoff will be cut 65 per cent. Wastewater will be cut 24 per cent.
The overall quality of stormwater runoff is also planned to rise, with fewer pollutants expected to find their way into local waterways.
Instead of traditional wetlands, The Groves will incorporate bio-retention swales, small sediment basis, contour banks and so-called rain gardens.
The Bonacci Group has forecast peak stormwater runoff will be cut 67-89 per cent, while annual stormwater runoff will be cut almost 80 per cent.
“Our modeling also shows that peak day water demand will drop 20 per cent, while instantaneous water demand will fall more than 50 per cent,” Foster says. Annual mains water demand across The Groves will be cut almost 11 megalitres.”
Tanked rainwater will enable householders to flush toilets and water gardens without drawing heavily on mains water, creating further, long-term savings. The lower overall impact of stormwater and its improved quality will also add to these savings – for the estate and broader community.
Less stormwater runoff will allow for smaller stormwater infrastructure and associated lower maintenance costs.
“Almost all other requirements will be reduced compared with similar-sized conventional estates,” Foster says. “These will include smaller water-pumping stations, smaller water storage reservoirs, smaller water mains and lighter distribution infrastructure, and smaller downstream water management infrastructure.
“Each of these elements will help lower costs compared with those of conventional estates.”
Foster and Coombes say that with these savings already built into the model, the longer-term appeal of building on estates like The Groves can only strengthen – especially if or when mains water and sewerage treatment charges, and power charges rise to offset environmental impact.
Ironically, though, The Groves is surrounded by a number of conventional estates, designed and built around conventional wetlands, and conventional mains water, sewerage and stormwater infrastructure. This surrounding development will impact some of The Groves’ results.
“However, once The Groves has been monitored and we can use that performance data to develop regional-wide, water-sensitive urban design standards, we should start to see wholesale changes to everything from household water use through to infrastructure design,” Foster says.
“This will help generate enormous savings across the board, and can only reinforce the overall value proposition of green or ‘dry’ developments.”
Comprehensive Geelong plan identifies urban water-management opportunities for Victoria
(This aricle was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Planning for a major Victorian land development near Geelong has identified a range of innovative long-term water-management options for a city in the grips of stringent Level 4 water restrictions.
Based on a ‘precinct-centric planning philosophy’ mooted by Geelong City Council, the plan has delivered what the council says is one of Australia’s most comprehensive report to date on water management for a major residential development.
Councillor Rod Macdonald, who also oversees the council’s portfolios on planning, and strategic and economic development, says the report’s findings on a number of issues, along with outcomes based on a range of flexible options, could fundamentally change the way urban water cycles are managed on future developments.
The report – Responsible Water Use At The Armstrong Creek Development (Analysis Of Integrated Water, Stormwater And Wastewater Options) – was prepared by Bonacci Water and released early in March in response to calls by Geelong City Council for water management ideas for its huge Armstrong Creek development, designed for upwards of 22,000 dwellings and a population of 50,000.
The development – the biggest ever for Geelong, and due to begin in 2010 – will also cover employment precincts, mixed-use corridors and parklands on a 2350ha site.
“Irrespective of future rainfall and climate conditions, we wanted to see how Armstrong Creek could be developed as a sustainable, green development unaffected by possible future water restrictions,” Councillor Macdonald says.
“This report is ground breaking and comprehensive, and covers a range of development options Council could adopt. It also presents us with an innovative, scientifically sound and compelling case for urban water cycle management that could well create a leadership position here in Victoria and throughout the rest of the country.”
Macdonald says previous reports have highlighted elements of water and associated energy management issues, “but not to this scale, and certainly not to this level of detail”.
Bonacci Water’s directors, Geoff Foster and Dr Peter Coombes, says that while their report covers the provision of additional local water sources and demand management designed to improve the security of water supplies around Geelong, it could provide a blueprint for other similar developments throughout the country.
The report investigates a range of options for the site, about 10km south of Geelong’s CBD, including the use of mandated rainwater tanks (3000 or 5000-litre capacity), water-efficient appliances and gardens, and wastewater reuse from treatment plants located within the Armstrong Creek precinct (this would be pumped throughout the development through a proposed third pipe).
Geelong City Council says a number of developers favour this third pipe as part of their overall development, and its installation would be offset by lower overall infrastructure costs.
Bonacci Water says that, depending on the option finally settled on, an outcome would be that Geelong wouldn’t need to rely on Melbourne water made surplus as a result of the proposed $3 billion-plus Wonthaggi desalination plant.
Nor would Geelong immediately need the proposed $142 million Melbourne-Geelong water pipeline to shift this water to the city; this pipeline could be deferred for a minimum of 19 years – or (in the best-case scenario) until 2043.
Bonacci Water also found that if Geelong City Council adopted an integrated water-cycle management option, mains water demand could be cut 73 per cent across the Armstrong Creek development, and wastewater discharge through the Black Rock facility on the coast could be cut 65 per cent.
However, the consultancy says it also calculated a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as there would be no need for desalination (with its associated power demands) or long-distance pumping requirements. Stormwater and sewerage treatment would also use less power.
“With smaller, more cost-effective infrastructure across Armstrong Creek, the council would also be able to free up an additional 80ha of land for development, making the exercise even more profitable for developers and the council,” Foster says.
“And because the proposed wetland development would only be a fraction of the size of traditional wetlands, we calculated a further saving of almost $70 million in infrastructure costs. Rainwater tanks fitted to all dwellings and commercial buildings, coupled with proposed bio-retention would almost eliminate the need for costly wetland construction.”
Bonacci Water says an added bonus would be the deferred upgrading of the Pettavel Basin and Bellarine transfer water mains.
The study also points to a worrying trend the consultancy claims hasn’t been addressed adequately to date . . . While Geelong and other major Australian cities have depended on rainfall runoff to replenish dams and reservoirs, the combined effects of drought, climate change and considerable population growth have led to worrying falls in measured runoff.
In Geelong’s case, while rainfall has only fallen 3 per cent between 2001 and 2006, runoff inexplicably has fallen 39-53 per cent. Rainfall in the Thompson catchments supplying Melbourne has fallen 10 per cent, yet runoff has fallen 35-60 per cent!
“Most Australian cities are getting sufficient rain; they simply aren’t seeing it run off into their dams and reservoirs,” Coombes says. “And rain that falls on hard surfaces within our cities is running off into the sea as untreated stormwater.”
As Coombes sees it, capturing more runoff from hard surfaces such as roofs, and storing it in rainwater tanks will see cities like Geelong saving precious rainwater that’s now disappearing.
Ironically, from Bonacci’s calculations, it would also see Armstrong Creek households able to call on 262 KLs of water each year – up from the current 169KL a year imposed in December 2006 as part of Level 4 water restrictions imposed on Geelong residents.
“This would go a long way to making Armstrong Creek the attractive, sustainable development Geelong City needs to attract future developers, residents and businesses,” Councillor Macdonald says. “Now we need to create further community awareness of the plan, and determine public support.”
Coombes says existing water-management practices can’t continue in the face of stringent Level 4 water restrictions for Geelong.
“We maintain that if current, traditional thinking prevails – and Geelong has to depend on future run-off water freed by increasingly expensive desalination – residents and businesses will end up paying a lot more for less water in future,” he says.
(This aricle was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Planning for a major Victorian land development near Geelong has identified a range of innovative long-term water-management options for a city in the grips of stringent Level 4 water restrictions.
Based on a ‘precinct-centric planning philosophy’ mooted by Geelong City Council, the plan has delivered what the council says is one of Australia’s most comprehensive report to date on water management for a major residential development.
Councillor Rod Macdonald, who also oversees the council’s portfolios on planning, and strategic and economic development, says the report’s findings on a number of issues, along with outcomes based on a range of flexible options, could fundamentally change the way urban water cycles are managed on future developments.
The report – Responsible Water Use At The Armstrong Creek Development (Analysis Of Integrated Water, Stormwater And Wastewater Options) – was prepared by Bonacci Water and released early in March in response to calls by Geelong City Council for water management ideas for its huge Armstrong Creek development, designed for upwards of 22,000 dwellings and a population of 50,000.
The development – the biggest ever for Geelong, and due to begin in 2010 – will also cover employment precincts, mixed-use corridors and parklands on a 2350ha site.
“Irrespective of future rainfall and climate conditions, we wanted to see how Armstrong Creek could be developed as a sustainable, green development unaffected by possible future water restrictions,” Councillor Macdonald says.
“This report is ground breaking and comprehensive, and covers a range of development options Council could adopt. It also presents us with an innovative, scientifically sound and compelling case for urban water cycle management that could well create a leadership position here in Victoria and throughout the rest of the country.”
Macdonald says previous reports have highlighted elements of water and associated energy management issues, “but not to this scale, and certainly not to this level of detail”.
Bonacci Water’s directors, Geoff Foster and Dr Peter Coombes, says that while their report covers the provision of additional local water sources and demand management designed to improve the security of water supplies around Geelong, it could provide a blueprint for other similar developments throughout the country.
The report investigates a range of options for the site, about 10km south of Geelong’s CBD, including the use of mandated rainwater tanks (3000 or 5000-litre capacity), water-efficient appliances and gardens, and wastewater reuse from treatment plants located within the Armstrong Creek precinct (this would be pumped throughout the development through a proposed third pipe).
Geelong City Council says a number of developers favour this third pipe as part of their overall development, and its installation would be offset by lower overall infrastructure costs.
Bonacci Water says that, depending on the option finally settled on, an outcome would be that Geelong wouldn’t need to rely on Melbourne water made surplus as a result of the proposed $3 billion-plus Wonthaggi desalination plant.
Nor would Geelong immediately need the proposed $142 million Melbourne-Geelong water pipeline to shift this water to the city; this pipeline could be deferred for a minimum of 19 years – or (in the best-case scenario) until 2043.
Bonacci Water also found that if Geelong City Council adopted an integrated water-cycle management option, mains water demand could be cut 73 per cent across the Armstrong Creek development, and wastewater discharge through the Black Rock facility on the coast could be cut 65 per cent.
However, the consultancy says it also calculated a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as there would be no need for desalination (with its associated power demands) or long-distance pumping requirements. Stormwater and sewerage treatment would also use less power.
“With smaller, more cost-effective infrastructure across Armstrong Creek, the council would also be able to free up an additional 80ha of land for development, making the exercise even more profitable for developers and the council,” Foster says.
“And because the proposed wetland development would only be a fraction of the size of traditional wetlands, we calculated a further saving of almost $70 million in infrastructure costs. Rainwater tanks fitted to all dwellings and commercial buildings, coupled with proposed bio-retention would almost eliminate the need for costly wetland construction.”
Bonacci Water says an added bonus would be the deferred upgrading of the Pettavel Basin and Bellarine transfer water mains.
The study also points to a worrying trend the consultancy claims hasn’t been addressed adequately to date . . . While Geelong and other major Australian cities have depended on rainfall runoff to replenish dams and reservoirs, the combined effects of drought, climate change and considerable population growth have led to worrying falls in measured runoff.
In Geelong’s case, while rainfall has only fallen 3 per cent between 2001 and 2006, runoff inexplicably has fallen 39-53 per cent. Rainfall in the Thompson catchments supplying Melbourne has fallen 10 per cent, yet runoff has fallen 35-60 per cent!
“Most Australian cities are getting sufficient rain; they simply aren’t seeing it run off into their dams and reservoirs,” Coombes says. “And rain that falls on hard surfaces within our cities is running off into the sea as untreated stormwater.”
As Coombes sees it, capturing more runoff from hard surfaces such as roofs, and storing it in rainwater tanks will see cities like Geelong saving precious rainwater that’s now disappearing.
Ironically, from Bonacci’s calculations, it would also see Armstrong Creek households able to call on 262 KLs of water each year – up from the current 169KL a year imposed in December 2006 as part of Level 4 water restrictions imposed on Geelong residents.
“This would go a long way to making Armstrong Creek the attractive, sustainable development Geelong City needs to attract future developers, residents and businesses,” Councillor Macdonald says. “Now we need to create further community awareness of the plan, and determine public support.”
Coombes says existing water-management practices can’t continue in the face of stringent Level 4 water restrictions for Geelong.
“We maintain that if current, traditional thinking prevails – and Geelong has to depend on future run-off water freed by increasingly expensive desalination – residents and businesses will end up paying a lot more for less water in future,” he says.
The rise and rise of greenwashing
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
WHEN North American environmental marketing company TerraChoice recently released its report The Six Sins Of Greenwashing, it unleashed what president, Scott McDougall, described as a ‘global storm of reaction’.
Here in Australia, the ACCC’s chairman, Graeme Samuel, says this reaction has been underscored by a sharp spike in the number of consumer complaints and inquiries on so-called green marketing, and the accelerating scramble by companies to market their products as environmentally safe – or making an environmental contribution – in the face of global climate change.
Samuel says that less than two years ago such complaints and inquiries were almost negligible. Now the ACCC is fielding them with monotonously regularity. No matter whether it’s cars, internet services, jet flights or shampoo, green product claims aren’t too far from the top of marketing promotional lists.
TerraChoice, which advises the Canadian Government on a broad range of eco-labelling issues, found that almost all of the 1020 ‘environmentally friendly’ products it scooped randomly off the shelves of six US and Canadian supermarkets recently were not what they seemed. As a result Six Sins was born.
These are the Sin Of Hidden Trade-Off, Sin Of Proof, Sin Of Vagueness, Sin Of Irrelevance, Sin Of Fibbing and Sin Of Lesser Of Two Evils.
This list of transgressions under these broad categories was legion; ‘energy efficient’ products that simply weren’t; products that contained hidden environmentally hazardous materials; products claiming to be organically certified with no corresponding proof; claims of ‘natural products’ that were found to be hazardous; claims of products being CFC-free despite CFCs being outlawed for some 20 years; false claims that some products are certified by internationally recognised standards; and even claims that some products (like cigarettes) were ‘organic’, and some pesticides ‘environmentally friendly’.
There’s little doubt, according to international and Australian environmental groups: many companies are, to a lesser or greater degree, greenwashing, and misleading consumers over their environmental practises, or claimed environmental benefits of their products or services.
McDougall says lies being told on eco-labelling – and confusion created by the growing list of environmental claims – are driving concern by consumers trying to make valid environmental choices on products they buy. What’s more, he says most greenwashing is insidious.
Australia’s Total Environment Centre, Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF-Australia and the Wilderness Society are all bringing greenwashing into the spotlight.
The Total Environment Centre’s Jeff Angel says NGO monitoring is needed, as organisations like his are faster at reacting to greenwashing claims than governments. “They’re often too slow,” he says. “Governments can also be hamstrung by political links to powerful vested commercial interests.”
One area of major Australian concern revolves around electricity, and it’s here that Angel’s TEC has been working closely with the ACCC. With power generation contributing some 35 per cent of all Australian greenhouse gas emissions – up 3 per cent since 2004, and up a huge 66 per cent in the past 17 years – consumers are keen to embrace green power. While the NSW Government has instigated a policy of providing all consumers with the choice of 10 per cent of their power from renewable sources, this hasn’t masked underlying problems.
Energy Australia was forced in 2006 to withdraw products it claimed were 100 per cent green electricity for no additional cost. The TEC complained the claims were false, and the ACCC stepped in to investigate, concerned that consumers signing up for these non-accredited CleanAir and GreenFuture products would think they were buying accredited renewable energy.
The ACCC was also concerned consumers could believe less energy was being generated using traditional fossil fuels. In reality, Energy Australia was acquiring renewable energy from existing old (not new)-technology generators.
To its credit, Energy Australia now clearly explains the difference between credited and 100 per cent green power products, and outlines the benefits of both forms of power.
To further enlighten consumers, the TEC, ACF and WWF-Australia, created Green Electricity Watch in 2002, an independent guide to locating the greenest power. In reality, green power doesn’t come ; cheap; of the highest rated NSW suppliers, for instance, consumers can expect to pay between $5.78 and $14.45 more a week for shifting from coal power.
The ACCC has also used its powers under the Trade Practices Act to force Origin Energy to pull ads claiming that switching to GreenPower products delivered the same benefits as not driving a car for two years.
A major European car maker was also brought to court over claims that one of its vehicles’ emissions in the first year would be offset by tree planting.
Samuel is now blunt; companies should steer clear of vague terms like ‘green’, ‘environmentally friendly’ and ‘environmentally safe’ when advertising their products, and says the Trade Practices Act is clear that companies cannot engage in misleading or deceptive practices.
Yet carbon offsetting, in the face of no formal Australian carbon trading scheme, may be where the worst examples of marketing greenwashing lurk. Although Australia has a voluntary carbon trading market, it remains unregulated, and the ACCC has highlighted offsetting as a key part of its campaign against greenwashing.
The ACCC is zeroing in on the contracting out of carbon offsets – at a time when European think tanks like the Carbon Trade Watch are producing reports like its Carbon Neutral Myth.
Although Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin all promote flying carbon-neutral, Melbourne-based Climate Positive Ltd has turned down opportunities to make money through offsets with all three airlines. The not-for-profit’s founder, Brendan Condon, says the airlines’ carbon calculations are all flawed.
Expect to see carbon offsetting become a major environmental battlefield in the greenwashing war in the years ahead.
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
WHEN North American environmental marketing company TerraChoice recently released its report The Six Sins Of Greenwashing, it unleashed what president, Scott McDougall, described as a ‘global storm of reaction’.
Here in Australia, the ACCC’s chairman, Graeme Samuel, says this reaction has been underscored by a sharp spike in the number of consumer complaints and inquiries on so-called green marketing, and the accelerating scramble by companies to market their products as environmentally safe – or making an environmental contribution – in the face of global climate change.
Samuel says that less than two years ago such complaints and inquiries were almost negligible. Now the ACCC is fielding them with monotonously regularity. No matter whether it’s cars, internet services, jet flights or shampoo, green product claims aren’t too far from the top of marketing promotional lists.
TerraChoice, which advises the Canadian Government on a broad range of eco-labelling issues, found that almost all of the 1020 ‘environmentally friendly’ products it scooped randomly off the shelves of six US and Canadian supermarkets recently were not what they seemed. As a result Six Sins was born.
These are the Sin Of Hidden Trade-Off, Sin Of Proof, Sin Of Vagueness, Sin Of Irrelevance, Sin Of Fibbing and Sin Of Lesser Of Two Evils.
This list of transgressions under these broad categories was legion; ‘energy efficient’ products that simply weren’t; products that contained hidden environmentally hazardous materials; products claiming to be organically certified with no corresponding proof; claims of ‘natural products’ that were found to be hazardous; claims of products being CFC-free despite CFCs being outlawed for some 20 years; false claims that some products are certified by internationally recognised standards; and even claims that some products (like cigarettes) were ‘organic’, and some pesticides ‘environmentally friendly’.
There’s little doubt, according to international and Australian environmental groups: many companies are, to a lesser or greater degree, greenwashing, and misleading consumers over their environmental practises, or claimed environmental benefits of their products or services.
McDougall says lies being told on eco-labelling – and confusion created by the growing list of environmental claims – are driving concern by consumers trying to make valid environmental choices on products they buy. What’s more, he says most greenwashing is insidious.
Australia’s Total Environment Centre, Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF-Australia and the Wilderness Society are all bringing greenwashing into the spotlight.
The Total Environment Centre’s Jeff Angel says NGO monitoring is needed, as organisations like his are faster at reacting to greenwashing claims than governments. “They’re often too slow,” he says. “Governments can also be hamstrung by political links to powerful vested commercial interests.”
One area of major Australian concern revolves around electricity, and it’s here that Angel’s TEC has been working closely with the ACCC. With power generation contributing some 35 per cent of all Australian greenhouse gas emissions – up 3 per cent since 2004, and up a huge 66 per cent in the past 17 years – consumers are keen to embrace green power. While the NSW Government has instigated a policy of providing all consumers with the choice of 10 per cent of their power from renewable sources, this hasn’t masked underlying problems.
Energy Australia was forced in 2006 to withdraw products it claimed were 100 per cent green electricity for no additional cost. The TEC complained the claims were false, and the ACCC stepped in to investigate, concerned that consumers signing up for these non-accredited CleanAir and GreenFuture products would think they were buying accredited renewable energy.
The ACCC was also concerned consumers could believe less energy was being generated using traditional fossil fuels. In reality, Energy Australia was acquiring renewable energy from existing old (not new)-technology generators.
To its credit, Energy Australia now clearly explains the difference between credited and 100 per cent green power products, and outlines the benefits of both forms of power.
To further enlighten consumers, the TEC, ACF and WWF-Australia, created Green Electricity Watch in 2002, an independent guide to locating the greenest power. In reality, green power doesn’t come ; cheap; of the highest rated NSW suppliers, for instance, consumers can expect to pay between $5.78 and $14.45 more a week for shifting from coal power.
The ACCC has also used its powers under the Trade Practices Act to force Origin Energy to pull ads claiming that switching to GreenPower products delivered the same benefits as not driving a car for two years.
A major European car maker was also brought to court over claims that one of its vehicles’ emissions in the first year would be offset by tree planting.
Samuel is now blunt; companies should steer clear of vague terms like ‘green’, ‘environmentally friendly’ and ‘environmentally safe’ when advertising their products, and says the Trade Practices Act is clear that companies cannot engage in misleading or deceptive practices.
Yet carbon offsetting, in the face of no formal Australian carbon trading scheme, may be where the worst examples of marketing greenwashing lurk. Although Australia has a voluntary carbon trading market, it remains unregulated, and the ACCC has highlighted offsetting as a key part of its campaign against greenwashing.
The ACCC is zeroing in on the contracting out of carbon offsets – at a time when European think tanks like the Carbon Trade Watch are producing reports like its Carbon Neutral Myth.
Although Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin all promote flying carbon-neutral, Melbourne-based Climate Positive Ltd has turned down opportunities to make money through offsets with all three airlines. The not-for-profit’s founder, Brendan Condon, says the airlines’ carbon calculations are all flawed.
Expect to see carbon offsetting become a major environmental battlefield in the greenwashing war in the years ahead.
Climate change turns fleet managers green
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
As cars are the single biggest contributor to greenhouse gases generated by Australia’s transport sector, it is not surprising that fleet managers see advantages in going green.
Underpinned by a range of government and industry initiatives, car and truck fleet managers are finding that responding to climate change delivers definite environmental and financial benefits. These range from measurable cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, through to substantially reduced fuel, tax and other running costs.
According to Ken Thompson, director research and communication for the Australasian Fleet Managers Association (AFMA), effective fleet management can be a major driver in modifying vehicle-induced climate change in the years ahead.
With 500 members, his association manages 800,000 to 1 million vehicles. As fleets are renewed on average every two-three years – most are only 2-5 years old, Thompson says – this tighter management is impacting Australia’s car and truck landscape quickly.
It is also affecting vehicle production in Australia; of the 1 million vehicles launched onto our roads last year, about 50 per cent wound up in fleets. About 75 per cent of all vehicles built in Australia (19 per cent of all sold) wind up on fleet rosters. As most locally made cars are larger six- cylinder models, any push to smaller, imported four-cylinder cars could affect Australia’s vehicle-building industry sooner rather than later.
“With fleets being the third highest organisational cost after accommodation and salaries, fleet managers are keen to cut costs significantly,” Thompson says. “As a result, what is good for the environment also helps save money, and is good for our members’ bottom lines.”
He says AFMA surveys members annually on safety and environmental issues, and has developed a Greener Motoring Guide. Members are encouraged to examine their fleets from top to bottom to determine suitability for tasks at hand.
Basic questions include: What do we need this vehicle for? Do we need it at all? And, can we replace larger six- and eight-cylinder cars with smaller four-cylinder ones to achieve the same ends? Apart from helping to lower running costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such fleet refinement also has a positive impact on on-road and fringe benefits tax costs.
While smaller vehicles attract lower FBT charges, higher kilometres travelled because of better fleet use can lower this tax further.
The NSW government’s Guidelines For Fleet Managers (part of its Cleaner Vehicles Action Plan) has set hefty performance benchmarks for greenhouse gas reductions by agency vehicles; by the end of the 2007-08 financial year, each agency is expected to cut emissions 20 per cent compared with benchmarks set in 2004-05.
The guidelines say this can be achieved through cutting the number of fleet vehicles, reducing vehicle kilometres travelled and improving individual vehicle fuel efficiencies. With about 12 per cent of all new cars, or more than 35,000 vehicles, sold in NSW each year being bought through the state contract, government policy is driving climate-change response hard.
As most of these vehicles are sold onto the second-hand market after two years, governments can help cut greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality significantly through improving the performance of its own fleet.
With this level of purchasing power, the NSW government says it can stimulate the cleaner-car market by favouring cars delivering better environmental performances. Putting this into perspective, the government says improvements to even the smallest fleets can deliver clear benefits; a 10 per cent reduction in fuel consumption for a fleet of 100 vehicles can save about 46 tonnes of CO2 in a year.
What’s more, driving at 110km/hr can use up to 25 per cent more fuel than driving at 90km/hr!
The Central Sydney Area Health Service, with a 650-vehicle fleet, won a recent AFMA environment award by reducing the fleet size without affecting work performance, buying more fuel-efficient vehicles, using alternative fuels, educating fleet drivers, conducting regular fuel-use audits and investigating hybrid vehicles.
From 1999 to 2003, fleet fuel consumption was slashed 30 per cent and kilometres travelled fell 21 per cent. Apart from cutting greenhouse gas emissions 30 per cent, the service saved more than $200,000 in 2002-03 compared with 1999-2000. Switching fuels can also lead to significant environmental and financial benefits.
The NSW Police Service is expected to lift its LPG fleet to 500-700 cars. This will save the force about $1.25 million a year, and cut CO2 emissions 420 tonnes.
But not all environmentally positive fleet decisions are made with financial ends in mind.
TNT Express has just taken delivery of 10 small Hino hybrid diesel-electric trucks specifically for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane inner-city, short-haul delivery services.
TNT Express’ national fleet and equipment manager Paul Wild says that of the 1000 trucks in his company’s fleet, 300 fall into the “small” category, and 100 are suitable for conversion to hybrid models. He says that at a conversion rate of 10 vehicles a year, TNT Express will have all 100 hybrid trucks on the road in a decade.
Wild says each Hino truck will cover 20,000-25,000 kilometres a year, and will save 600 litres of fuel compared with conventional models. Each will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1600kg a year. However, he says these hybrid trucks will never pay for themselves on fuel savings alone.
“We started evaluating several Japanese domestic-market hybrid models in 2004, and we’re now satisfied these hybrid trucks are ideal for inner-city work,” Wild says. “Although we have been looking at bio-diesel fuels, we’re concerned about several issues – including the fact that such fuels can come at the expense of basic foods.
“TNT Express’ move to hybrid vehicles is a commitment to helping the environment. Our customers are also expecting us to play a part in helping to reduce their overall carbon footprints.”
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
As cars are the single biggest contributor to greenhouse gases generated by Australia’s transport sector, it is not surprising that fleet managers see advantages in going green.
Underpinned by a range of government and industry initiatives, car and truck fleet managers are finding that responding to climate change delivers definite environmental and financial benefits. These range from measurable cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, through to substantially reduced fuel, tax and other running costs.
According to Ken Thompson, director research and communication for the Australasian Fleet Managers Association (AFMA), effective fleet management can be a major driver in modifying vehicle-induced climate change in the years ahead.
With 500 members, his association manages 800,000 to 1 million vehicles. As fleets are renewed on average every two-three years – most are only 2-5 years old, Thompson says – this tighter management is impacting Australia’s car and truck landscape quickly.
It is also affecting vehicle production in Australia; of the 1 million vehicles launched onto our roads last year, about 50 per cent wound up in fleets. About 75 per cent of all vehicles built in Australia (19 per cent of all sold) wind up on fleet rosters. As most locally made cars are larger six- cylinder models, any push to smaller, imported four-cylinder cars could affect Australia’s vehicle-building industry sooner rather than later.
“With fleets being the third highest organisational cost after accommodation and salaries, fleet managers are keen to cut costs significantly,” Thompson says. “As a result, what is good for the environment also helps save money, and is good for our members’ bottom lines.”
He says AFMA surveys members annually on safety and environmental issues, and has developed a Greener Motoring Guide. Members are encouraged to examine their fleets from top to bottom to determine suitability for tasks at hand.
Basic questions include: What do we need this vehicle for? Do we need it at all? And, can we replace larger six- and eight-cylinder cars with smaller four-cylinder ones to achieve the same ends? Apart from helping to lower running costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such fleet refinement also has a positive impact on on-road and fringe benefits tax costs.
While smaller vehicles attract lower FBT charges, higher kilometres travelled because of better fleet use can lower this tax further.
The NSW government’s Guidelines For Fleet Managers (part of its Cleaner Vehicles Action Plan) has set hefty performance benchmarks for greenhouse gas reductions by agency vehicles; by the end of the 2007-08 financial year, each agency is expected to cut emissions 20 per cent compared with benchmarks set in 2004-05.
The guidelines say this can be achieved through cutting the number of fleet vehicles, reducing vehicle kilometres travelled and improving individual vehicle fuel efficiencies. With about 12 per cent of all new cars, or more than 35,000 vehicles, sold in NSW each year being bought through the state contract, government policy is driving climate-change response hard.
As most of these vehicles are sold onto the second-hand market after two years, governments can help cut greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality significantly through improving the performance of its own fleet.
With this level of purchasing power, the NSW government says it can stimulate the cleaner-car market by favouring cars delivering better environmental performances. Putting this into perspective, the government says improvements to even the smallest fleets can deliver clear benefits; a 10 per cent reduction in fuel consumption for a fleet of 100 vehicles can save about 46 tonnes of CO2 in a year.
What’s more, driving at 110km/hr can use up to 25 per cent more fuel than driving at 90km/hr!
The Central Sydney Area Health Service, with a 650-vehicle fleet, won a recent AFMA environment award by reducing the fleet size without affecting work performance, buying more fuel-efficient vehicles, using alternative fuels, educating fleet drivers, conducting regular fuel-use audits and investigating hybrid vehicles.
From 1999 to 2003, fleet fuel consumption was slashed 30 per cent and kilometres travelled fell 21 per cent. Apart from cutting greenhouse gas emissions 30 per cent, the service saved more than $200,000 in 2002-03 compared with 1999-2000. Switching fuels can also lead to significant environmental and financial benefits.
The NSW Police Service is expected to lift its LPG fleet to 500-700 cars. This will save the force about $1.25 million a year, and cut CO2 emissions 420 tonnes.
But not all environmentally positive fleet decisions are made with financial ends in mind.
TNT Express has just taken delivery of 10 small Hino hybrid diesel-electric trucks specifically for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane inner-city, short-haul delivery services.
TNT Express’ national fleet and equipment manager Paul Wild says that of the 1000 trucks in his company’s fleet, 300 fall into the “small” category, and 100 are suitable for conversion to hybrid models. He says that at a conversion rate of 10 vehicles a year, TNT Express will have all 100 hybrid trucks on the road in a decade.
Wild says each Hino truck will cover 20,000-25,000 kilometres a year, and will save 600 litres of fuel compared with conventional models. Each will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1600kg a year. However, he says these hybrid trucks will never pay for themselves on fuel savings alone.
“We started evaluating several Japanese domestic-market hybrid models in 2004, and we’re now satisfied these hybrid trucks are ideal for inner-city work,” Wild says. “Although we have been looking at bio-diesel fuels, we’re concerned about several issues – including the fact that such fuels can come at the expense of basic foods.
“TNT Express’ move to hybrid vehicles is a commitment to helping the environment. Our customers are also expecting us to play a part in helping to reduce their overall carbon footprints.”
Desalination set to create large, costly carbon footprint
(This story was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Scratch the surface of Australia’s various desalination plans, and you’ll find plenty of carbon – much of it as yet unaccounted for.
As State Governments and their associated water authorities embrace desalination as a ‘silver bullet’ for our cities’ continuing water problems, little attention is being paid to a number of looming carbon footprints and largely hidden operating costs at the expense of a wide range of water conservation strategies.
According to one of Australia’s leading independent water experts, Dr Peter Coombes, taxpayers need to know how much they can expect to pay for water once formal carbon trading schemes and carbon taxes are in place, and desalination plant operating costs, including the costs of transporting water to cities, have been properly counted.
We also need to ask what implications these carbon footprints will have on Australia reaching its planned 60 per cent cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Coombes, an adjunct associate professor of molecular sciences and engineering at both the University of Newcastle and the University of Melbourne, says desalination is arguably one of the most politicised spaces in water planning. This has diminished progress on our need for a diverse portfolio of water strategies, he says.
“There are vested interests at play here that have not fully revealed the implications of relying heavily on desalination to solve our ongoing water crisis, and other vested interests on the scientific side that are reluctant to contradict the status quo,” he says.
It works like this: Water authorities maintain virtual monopolies on water supply. These authorities, in turn, plough enormous revenues back into State Government coffers every year from water sales. And as a large proportion of academic funding and consultancy fees for water-related issues are underwritten by governments and utilities, few experts want to be seen biting hands that feed them.
A number of specialist water engineers say that to criticise desalination too strongly could be business suicide.
Almost all States say their desalination plants will run on green, renewable energy. However this is not properly accounted for. Nor are energy costs that will be associated with shifting enormous amounts of water from the plants to various city reservoirs – some as high as 200-300m above sea level, and more than 100km from their plants.
As ‘discounted costs’ these operating and energy costs will ultimately be borne by governments and taxpayers. Ongoing operating costs and future carbon taxes – treated as ‘levelised costs’ – also have been discounted away to low costs in current calculations, but also will have to be borne by future governments and taxpayers.
Together, these additional costs and taxes could lead to a four- or five-fold increase in the cost of water.
A slight chink in Victoria’s water-tight armour appeared last week, with State Minister for Water, Tim Holding, suggesting that Melburnians could possibly see water restrictions eased once Melbourne’s desalination plant came online in 2012. However, Melbourne Water’s managing direct, Rob Skinner, contradicted this by suggesting the city should not expect to be ‘awash with water’.
“Desalination should not be seen as an excuse for State Governments and water authorities to go soft on water conservation measures or alternative collection and storage strategies,” Coombes says. We still need water conservation and alternative water sources to secure a sustainable water future.”
Yet if water authorities and State Treasuries get their way, financial support for household water-saving and water conservation initiatives may be diverted into supporting proposed desalination schemes.
State Treasuries may consider reducing or removing support for water conservation measures to increase water demands and associated revenue to repay debt incurred through installing and running desalination plants.
Such moves would enable water authorities to maintain their monopoly over water storage and distribution, and allow State Treasuries to continue drawing billions of dollars of annual revenue from the sale of mains water.
The argument from water authorities is that nothing short of their strict monopoly control of water storage and distribution will work – and desalination plants plugged into their centralised systems will ensure this monopoly control continues.
According to the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council Working Group on Water for Cities, as much as $30 billion has been earmarked for Australia’s various desalination projects in coming years.
However, one Council member (who has also advised major industry groups, and various State Government departments and officials) says we can expect the final bill for desalination plants and associated infrastructure to more than triple over the next 10 years – hence the perceived need to divert as much financial support as possible into desalination.
Backing desalination to the exclusion of all other water conservation measures would also run counter to the State Government’s previous commitments that future water policy would help underpin local industry and manufacturing efforts.
The Council member says that if it proceeds, the move would unravel more than a decade’s work in establishing water-saving and industry initiatives. A multi-million dollar industry is emerging to provide a range of water conservation products. However, as many as 30 Victorian and national businesses face severe financial stress if all water funding support goes to desalination, the Council member says.
If desalination is supported to the exclusion of all other water-saving measures, we can expect everything from water rebates for rainwater tanks and water-saving appliances, to State financial support for water-sensitive urban design to almost disappear overnight.
“And until we know the real costs – in terms of operation, technology transfer to overseas companies jostling to build these plants, and increased greenhouse gas emissions – we should remain wary,” the Council member says.
(This story was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Scratch the surface of Australia’s various desalination plans, and you’ll find plenty of carbon – much of it as yet unaccounted for.
As State Governments and their associated water authorities embrace desalination as a ‘silver bullet’ for our cities’ continuing water problems, little attention is being paid to a number of looming carbon footprints and largely hidden operating costs at the expense of a wide range of water conservation strategies.
According to one of Australia’s leading independent water experts, Dr Peter Coombes, taxpayers need to know how much they can expect to pay for water once formal carbon trading schemes and carbon taxes are in place, and desalination plant operating costs, including the costs of transporting water to cities, have been properly counted.
We also need to ask what implications these carbon footprints will have on Australia reaching its planned 60 per cent cut to greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Coombes, an adjunct associate professor of molecular sciences and engineering at both the University of Newcastle and the University of Melbourne, says desalination is arguably one of the most politicised spaces in water planning. This has diminished progress on our need for a diverse portfolio of water strategies, he says.
“There are vested interests at play here that have not fully revealed the implications of relying heavily on desalination to solve our ongoing water crisis, and other vested interests on the scientific side that are reluctant to contradict the status quo,” he says.
It works like this: Water authorities maintain virtual monopolies on water supply. These authorities, in turn, plough enormous revenues back into State Government coffers every year from water sales. And as a large proportion of academic funding and consultancy fees for water-related issues are underwritten by governments and utilities, few experts want to be seen biting hands that feed them.
A number of specialist water engineers say that to criticise desalination too strongly could be business suicide.
Almost all States say their desalination plants will run on green, renewable energy. However this is not properly accounted for. Nor are energy costs that will be associated with shifting enormous amounts of water from the plants to various city reservoirs – some as high as 200-300m above sea level, and more than 100km from their plants.
As ‘discounted costs’ these operating and energy costs will ultimately be borne by governments and taxpayers. Ongoing operating costs and future carbon taxes – treated as ‘levelised costs’ – also have been discounted away to low costs in current calculations, but also will have to be borne by future governments and taxpayers.
Together, these additional costs and taxes could lead to a four- or five-fold increase in the cost of water.
A slight chink in Victoria’s water-tight armour appeared last week, with State Minister for Water, Tim Holding, suggesting that Melburnians could possibly see water restrictions eased once Melbourne’s desalination plant came online in 2012. However, Melbourne Water’s managing direct, Rob Skinner, contradicted this by suggesting the city should not expect to be ‘awash with water’.
“Desalination should not be seen as an excuse for State Governments and water authorities to go soft on water conservation measures or alternative collection and storage strategies,” Coombes says. We still need water conservation and alternative water sources to secure a sustainable water future.”
Yet if water authorities and State Treasuries get their way, financial support for household water-saving and water conservation initiatives may be diverted into supporting proposed desalination schemes.
State Treasuries may consider reducing or removing support for water conservation measures to increase water demands and associated revenue to repay debt incurred through installing and running desalination plants.
Such moves would enable water authorities to maintain their monopoly over water storage and distribution, and allow State Treasuries to continue drawing billions of dollars of annual revenue from the sale of mains water.
The argument from water authorities is that nothing short of their strict monopoly control of water storage and distribution will work – and desalination plants plugged into their centralised systems will ensure this monopoly control continues.
According to the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council Working Group on Water for Cities, as much as $30 billion has been earmarked for Australia’s various desalination projects in coming years.
However, one Council member (who has also advised major industry groups, and various State Government departments and officials) says we can expect the final bill for desalination plants and associated infrastructure to more than triple over the next 10 years – hence the perceived need to divert as much financial support as possible into desalination.
Backing desalination to the exclusion of all other water conservation measures would also run counter to the State Government’s previous commitments that future water policy would help underpin local industry and manufacturing efforts.
The Council member says that if it proceeds, the move would unravel more than a decade’s work in establishing water-saving and industry initiatives. A multi-million dollar industry is emerging to provide a range of water conservation products. However, as many as 30 Victorian and national businesses face severe financial stress if all water funding support goes to desalination, the Council member says.
If desalination is supported to the exclusion of all other water-saving measures, we can expect everything from water rebates for rainwater tanks and water-saving appliances, to State financial support for water-sensitive urban design to almost disappear overnight.
“And until we know the real costs – in terms of operation, technology transfer to overseas companies jostling to build these plants, and increased greenhouse gas emissions – we should remain wary,” the Council member says.
Dam stories and statistics
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Building more dams is the accepted, conventional way of addressing urban water shortages. But in the face of dwindling rainfall, huge drops in runoff and other effects of climate change, is convention the best way of allocating precious water-resource infrastructure spending?
By any global water infrastructure standards, the South-East Queensland Water Grid is enormous, promising water-supply relief for one of the country’s fastest-growing regional populations.
Yet serious academic and expert opinion casts doubt on whether the $9 billion-plus project is necessary in light of Australia’s current rainfall and runoff statistics – and whether such a huge sum would not be better spent on other desperately needed Australian infrastructure projects.
These experts claim the future water needs of Brisbane, and the Gold and Sunshine Coasts would be better served – far longer – by investing in more flexible, sustainable decentralised water management mechanisms that would cost far less in the long run.
By the time the SE Queensland Water Grid is fully online, it will combine a number of assets claimed to eventually deliver about 340,000-350,000 megalitres of water a year for the region, whose population currently sits at about 400,000, and growing rapidly.
The grid will ultimately comprise two new dams (the Wyaralong and highly controversial Traveston Crossing dams), upgrades to existing reservoirs, a desalination plant on the Gold Coast, the huge Western Corridor Recycled Water Project and some 450km of pipelines linking these assets.
Queensland’s Department of Infrastructure says the $2.4 billion recycling project – the largest ever in Australia, and claimed to be the third largest of its type in the world – will deliver 232 megalitres of treated water a day, reducing demand for fresh water from Wivenhoe Dam. It will also supply some 20 megalitres of water a day to Swanbank power station, which the government says will free up enough “drinking water” for 140,000 SE Queenslanders.
The $1.2 billion desalination plant at Tugun, the largest if its type on Australia’s east coast, is slated to deliver 125 megalitres of fresh water a day.
The Traveston Crossing Dam is scheduled to deliver 15,000 megalitres of water by the time Stage II is completed in 2035, and the Wyaralong Dam near Beaudesert is slated to deliver 21,000 megalitres by 2011.
The $900 million southern regional pipeline will help move 130 megalitres of water a day, the northern pipeline will handle 56 megalitres a day and the eastern pipeline interconnector (to be finished in December) will shift 22 megalitres a day.
Balanced against this seemingly endless supply of water, however, are some disturbing water-catchment statistics. Despite recent heavy rains across SE Queensland, the State Government has announced that Wivenhoe Dam levels have reached 40 per cent – a figure reflected across the region’s other three dams – and far from any long-term “safe” level.
Although it could be argued this is precisely why the water grid is necessary, broader, nation-wide rainfall and runoff statistics point to longer-term uncertainty of urban water supplies depending on large, single sources like it.
In a recent engineering paper prepared by Dr Peter Coombes and Dr Michael Barry, two of Australia’s fiercest independent water experts, this uncertainty is being fuelled by combined pressures of population growth, “a highly variable climate” and the “potential for climate change”.
In a nutshell, population growth, a slight rise in regular temperatures and slight falls in eastern Australian rainfalls over the past 10 years have combined to deliver a disturbing fall in recent annual runoff.
Rainfall events of 50mm or less are producing no runoff. Coombes and Barry also say Brisbane’s Wivenhoe Dam has generally been subject to wet and dry cycles, with higher than average rainfall between 1927 and 1976, leading to generally higher runoff. The highest runoff level was experienced in 1974.
However, there were dry cycles from 1909 to 1926, and 1977 to 2006, with lowest rainfall occurring in 1977 and 1992-93.
“Importantly the [Wivenhoe] catchment experienced four extended periods of significantly lower runoff: 1909-26, 1977-80, 1993-95 and 2000-06,” they say. “The most severe period of low runoff occurred during 1909-26.
“Clearly, the current drought may not be the worst [on] record . . . and it is possible that rainfall and runoff patterns at Wivenhoe Dam have returned to a drier state evident earlier in the [20th] Century.”
The Coombes-Barry report says runoff into Wivenhoe Dam depends highly on the natural variation in rainfall; median rainfall and runoff was 846mm and 224 gigalitres respectively.
However, median annual runoff into the dam for the worst-case scenario for climate change in 2030 would be 181 gigalitres – a 19 per cent fall on the median. Bluntly, if this fall is duplicated across SE Queensland over the next 20 years, it may mean all this expensive infrastructure will never be fully used.
Meanwhile, Coombes and Barry say the majority of rainfall hitting Brisbane’s urban area is ultimately wasted, either as stormwater runoff or untreated wastewater. They calculate each household uses an average of 251 kilolitres of water a year, but is losing more than 140 kilolitres a year as wastewater and a staggering 370 kilolitres a year as stormwater runoff.
“It’s clear that if this wasted water was captured and treated, there’d be little need for the Grid as currently planned,” Coombes says. “A decentralised water-management system involving residential and industrial rainwater tanks, and water-treatment plants would be a far wiser – and more cost-effective – investment in infrastructure.”
The Coombes-Barry report underscores this by asserting that yields from tanks in Brisbane from a worst-case scenario for climate change in 2030 would be 63 kilolitres, a 5 per cent fall on today’s tank yields.
“The relative efficiency of traditional water supply catchments and rainwater tanks supplying Brisbane is highlighted by the response to a 50 per cent decrease in median rainfall [being] a 60 per cent reduction in runoff into Wivenhoe Dam, [but only] a 15 per cent reduction in yield from a 3000-litre tank,” the report says.
“Decentralised rainwater harvesting from roof catchments in cities has the potential to supplement centralised water strategies to create an overall more resilient urban water supply.”
In short, Queensland’s authorities could drought-proof the SE region for a fraction of the cost of the grid, freeing billions for other, vital infrastructure programs.
(This article was published in The Australian Financial Review)
Building more dams is the accepted, conventional way of addressing urban water shortages. But in the face of dwindling rainfall, huge drops in runoff and other effects of climate change, is convention the best way of allocating precious water-resource infrastructure spending?
By any global water infrastructure standards, the South-East Queensland Water Grid is enormous, promising water-supply relief for one of the country’s fastest-growing regional populations.
Yet serious academic and expert opinion casts doubt on whether the $9 billion-plus project is necessary in light of Australia’s current rainfall and runoff statistics – and whether such a huge sum would not be better spent on other desperately needed Australian infrastructure projects.
These experts claim the future water needs of Brisbane, and the Gold and Sunshine Coasts would be better served – far longer – by investing in more flexible, sustainable decentralised water management mechanisms that would cost far less in the long run.
By the time the SE Queensland Water Grid is fully online, it will combine a number of assets claimed to eventually deliver about 340,000-350,000 megalitres of water a year for the region, whose population currently sits at about 400,000, and growing rapidly.
The grid will ultimately comprise two new dams (the Wyaralong and highly controversial Traveston Crossing dams), upgrades to existing reservoirs, a desalination plant on the Gold Coast, the huge Western Corridor Recycled Water Project and some 450km of pipelines linking these assets.
Queensland’s Department of Infrastructure says the $2.4 billion recycling project – the largest ever in Australia, and claimed to be the third largest of its type in the world – will deliver 232 megalitres of treated water a day, reducing demand for fresh water from Wivenhoe Dam. It will also supply some 20 megalitres of water a day to Swanbank power station, which the government says will free up enough “drinking water” for 140,000 SE Queenslanders.
The $1.2 billion desalination plant at Tugun, the largest if its type on Australia’s east coast, is slated to deliver 125 megalitres of fresh water a day.
The Traveston Crossing Dam is scheduled to deliver 15,000 megalitres of water by the time Stage II is completed in 2035, and the Wyaralong Dam near Beaudesert is slated to deliver 21,000 megalitres by 2011.
The $900 million southern regional pipeline will help move 130 megalitres of water a day, the northern pipeline will handle 56 megalitres a day and the eastern pipeline interconnector (to be finished in December) will shift 22 megalitres a day.
Balanced against this seemingly endless supply of water, however, are some disturbing water-catchment statistics. Despite recent heavy rains across SE Queensland, the State Government has announced that Wivenhoe Dam levels have reached 40 per cent – a figure reflected across the region’s other three dams – and far from any long-term “safe” level.
Although it could be argued this is precisely why the water grid is necessary, broader, nation-wide rainfall and runoff statistics point to longer-term uncertainty of urban water supplies depending on large, single sources like it.
In a recent engineering paper prepared by Dr Peter Coombes and Dr Michael Barry, two of Australia’s fiercest independent water experts, this uncertainty is being fuelled by combined pressures of population growth, “a highly variable climate” and the “potential for climate change”.
In a nutshell, population growth, a slight rise in regular temperatures and slight falls in eastern Australian rainfalls over the past 10 years have combined to deliver a disturbing fall in recent annual runoff.
Rainfall events of 50mm or less are producing no runoff. Coombes and Barry also say Brisbane’s Wivenhoe Dam has generally been subject to wet and dry cycles, with higher than average rainfall between 1927 and 1976, leading to generally higher runoff. The highest runoff level was experienced in 1974.
However, there were dry cycles from 1909 to 1926, and 1977 to 2006, with lowest rainfall occurring in 1977 and 1992-93.
“Importantly the [Wivenhoe] catchment experienced four extended periods of significantly lower runoff: 1909-26, 1977-80, 1993-95 and 2000-06,” they say. “The most severe period of low runoff occurred during 1909-26.
“Clearly, the current drought may not be the worst [on] record . . . and it is possible that rainfall and runoff patterns at Wivenhoe Dam have returned to a drier state evident earlier in the [20th] Century.”
The Coombes-Barry report says runoff into Wivenhoe Dam depends highly on the natural variation in rainfall; median rainfall and runoff was 846mm and 224 gigalitres respectively.
However, median annual runoff into the dam for the worst-case scenario for climate change in 2030 would be 181 gigalitres – a 19 per cent fall on the median. Bluntly, if this fall is duplicated across SE Queensland over the next 20 years, it may mean all this expensive infrastructure will never be fully used.
Meanwhile, Coombes and Barry say the majority of rainfall hitting Brisbane’s urban area is ultimately wasted, either as stormwater runoff or untreated wastewater. They calculate each household uses an average of 251 kilolitres of water a year, but is losing more than 140 kilolitres a year as wastewater and a staggering 370 kilolitres a year as stormwater runoff.
“It’s clear that if this wasted water was captured and treated, there’d be little need for the Grid as currently planned,” Coombes says. “A decentralised water-management system involving residential and industrial rainwater tanks, and water-treatment plants would be a far wiser – and more cost-effective – investment in infrastructure.”
The Coombes-Barry report underscores this by asserting that yields from tanks in Brisbane from a worst-case scenario for climate change in 2030 would be 63 kilolitres, a 5 per cent fall on today’s tank yields.
“The relative efficiency of traditional water supply catchments and rainwater tanks supplying Brisbane is highlighted by the response to a 50 per cent decrease in median rainfall [being] a 60 per cent reduction in runoff into Wivenhoe Dam, [but only] a 15 per cent reduction in yield from a 3000-litre tank,” the report says.
“Decentralised rainwater harvesting from roof catchments in cities has the potential to supplement centralised water strategies to create an overall more resilient urban water supply.”
In short, Queensland’s authorities could drought-proof the SE region for a fraction of the cost of the grid, freeing billions for other, vital infrastructure programs.
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