Thunder From Down Under

By: Jerry Yudelson, PE, LEED AP, Yudelson Associates - Monday, February 26, 2007
Source: Yudelson Associates

I’ve just returned from the Australian "Green Cities" conference in Sydney. There were more than 900 delegates and exhibitors in the beautiful Sydney Conference Center. On a per capita basis (Australia has about 20 million people), the show was just about the same size as the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild show in Denver last November that attracted more than 13,300 people. The Australians have a "Green Star" rating system very similar to the American LEED system, with six Green Stars (World Class) equivalent to a LEED Platinum certification. Co-sponsored by the Australian Property Council (APC) and the Green Building Council of Australia, (GBCA), the meeting ran for two full days.

To gauge the size of the organizations, the APC has about 80 staff members and appears to embrace ULI, NAIOP, BOMA and just about every other major commercial real estate organization in the country. Relatively new, the GBCA is about four years old, with about nine staff members, currently headed by Romily Madew, a very dynamic woman.

She headed a group that published a seminal work last year, detailing the business case for green buildings in Australia, which has had a major impact on moving the green building agenda forward there.

For me, the biggest takeaway understanding is that green building is being embraced big-time by the development community in Australia. The head of the APC, Peter Verwer, in his closing remarks, claimed that the development community in Australia (meaning the large developers) are sold on the importance of green buildings and is fully committed to building them. As usual, I’m a skeptic, but I will say that there was widespread enthusiasm among the delegates I talked to, even if they’re not always sure what they’re in for.

I also went to Melbourne and presented our business case to a forum there, hosted by the GBCA and the Australian version of ASHRAE, the Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air-Conditioning and Heating, AIRAH. The City of Melbourne has built the first six-star Green Star public building, the Council House Two, and has a serious plan to become "carbon neutral" as a city by 2020.

The biggest issue in most of Australia by far is a multi-year drought, the worst in 100 years, which has large cities such as Sydney and Melbourne under severe water restrictions. Everywhere I went, I saw dual-flush toilets in use in all newer buildings. I’m told that since 2003, every new home has had to install dual-flush toilets. What a simple and straightforward way to save half or more of water use from flushing toilets. Many people are installing rainwater catchment and graywater systems in their homes, as a way to save treasured garden plots. Before our own southwestern and western droughts get too severe, we should be emulating the Aussies.

We also heard from New Zealand, which has just begun a green building council, www.nzgbc.org, headed by Jane Henley. Quite a lot of interest there, but a much smaller country (about 4.5 million people), so just getting started.

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