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GUEST OBSERVATION
Australia is allegedly in the midst of a <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/revolution/" target="_blank">“green building revolution”</a>, powered by the awarding of ratings to developers who build sustainable buildings.
But this brave new world is only a reality in the high-end office blocks of Australia’s central business districts (CBDs). Everywhere else, the pace of progress is much slower. At least, that is what my research into <a href="https://www.envirovoluntarism.info/" target="_blank">more than 70 sustainability tools</a>, both in Australia and overseas, tells me. Let me explain this through one example.
In 2002, the <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au" target="_blank">Green Building Council of Australia</a> (GBCA) was established to “drive the adoption of green building practices through market-based solutions”.
Last week it hosted the <a href="https://www.greencities.org.au/" target="_blank">Green Cities Conference</a>, bringing together the construction industry, policy makers and academics to discuss the way forward in improving the environmental and resource sustainability of buildings and cities in Australia and elsewhere.
The GBCA is particularly proud of its <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/" target="_blank">Green Star</a> system, which rates the environmental performance of buildings.
A Green Star revolution in Australia?
The ratings help the construction industry to showcase the environmental credentials of its buildings. In this respect, Green Star is a simple and elegant idea: it allows a building’s environmental performance (in terms of energy, water and material use) to be easily compared with that of other buildings – rather like the energy performance stickers you find on new fridges or cars.
This easy comparability makes these assessment tools very attractive. For developers, investors, owners and occupants alike, it is easy to grasp that a six-star building is somehow better than a four-star one.
The numbers the GBCA presents about its Green Star program are impressive. <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/green-star-overview/" target="_blank">More than 7 million square metres</a> of Australia’s built-up space is rated as having high levels of environmental performance. This includes <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/docs/evolution2013.pdf" target="_blank">18% of all office space</a> in the CBDs of major cities. But what do these numbers actually mean, and are these successes found everywhere, or are they concentrated in certain locations?
Central focus
Green Star is mainly used to label office space in the CBDs of Australia’s cities (those with populations of at least 20,000). Here it has indeed achieved considerable success.
Since the introduction of Green Star in 2003, some 5.3 million square metres of office space was added to the CBDs of Australia’s major cities. Of this, about <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/green-star-overview/" target="_blank">2.9 million square metres</a> are now Green Star labelled. That is a success rate of about 50%, which may be considered a very successful outcome.
But what is labelled, exactly?
Green Star awards three levels of labels: “Best Practice” (4 stars), “Australian Excellence” (5 stars), and “World Leadership” (6 stars). Green Star does not report on how many buildings or square metres fit into each category, but some other labelling tools may give some insight. The partly mandatory <a href="https://www.nabers.gov.au/public/WebPages/Home.aspx" target="_blank">National Australian Built Environment Rating System</a> awards its highest labelling category to just <a href="https://www.nabers.gov.au/public/WebPages/DocumentHandler.ashx?docType=3&amp;id=105&amp;attId=0" target="_blank">8% of buildings</a>. Meanwhile, Green Star’s counterpart in the United States, <a href="https://www.usgbc.org/leed/" target="_blank">LEED</a> (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), only awards <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=qCH00bF-4MYC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=the+world%27s+greenest+buildings&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=yaUVU-y-NcTUkwWZjYHgCw&amp;ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;q=the%20world's%20greenest%20buildings&amp;f=false" target="_blank">6% of its labels</a> in its highest category.
If the vast majority of buildings are not hitting the highest sustainability standards, then are we really witnessing a revolution?
A levelling-out of growth
It should also be kept in mind that these are <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/uploads/170/34474/A_decade_of_green_building_.pdf" target="_blank">accumulated numbers</a>. If they are unpacked as yearly “successes”, the picture presented by the GBCA changes a little more. The below figure gives some insight.
<a href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/44175/area14mp/g928847f-1395118670.jpg"><img src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/44175/width668/g928847f-1395118670.jpg" alt=""></a>
Source: GBCA
Since 2008, the uptake of Green Star labelling has levelled out. Before then, it was increasingly sought by developers for buildings they would develop in the future, but this no longer seems to be happening.
This is not that surprising. With the introduction of a tool such as Green Star it is to be expected that many early adopters try it out in the first years when they can be pioneers, and be rewarded as such. It is much harder to get the later adopters on board.
If 18% of the office market represents the Green Star system’s saturation point, then this does not bode well for the revolution’s future. On the current trend we can expect the levelling-out of actually built Green Star buildings to begin in 2016.
This will leave more than 80% of the Australian office market untouched by well over a decade of “Green Star revolution”.
Outside the office
Australia, of course, has more than just office buildings. The total residential building stock is estimated at about 1.5 billion square metres, based on <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0?opendocument&amp;navpos=220" target="_blank">9 million dwellings</a> at an average for new builds of around <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/featurearticlesbyCatalogue/8BB3F6B866BC35CECA2578A000153026?OpenDocument" target="_blank">220 square metres</a> (historical averages were lower, which brings down the total). This dwarfs the total commercial space, which is about <a href="https://www.nabers.gov.au/public/WebPages/DocumentHandler.ashx?docType=3&amp;id=105&amp;attId=0">27 million square metres</a>.
In this context, Green Star’s impact has been marginal at best. The 7 million square metres of Green Star labelled space represents less than 0.5% of the total.
In other words, outside Australia’s major business districts, green building labelling has not caught on, despite the GBCA’s attempts to move into these markets. The much-touted revolution has not spilled over from the CBDs to the rest of the country.
What makes a revolution?
Green Star is but one of the many tools that I have studied through which the construction industry seeks to foster more sustainable practice. This is a revolution in itself. Like Green Star, these tools have achieved some successes in niche markets, but have not achieved overall sweeping results.
Also like Green Star, these tools have received both <a href="https://urbansustainabilityresilience.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/trends-in-governance-for-urban-sustainability-and-resilience/#comments" target="_blank">accolades and criticisms</a>. The 7 million square metres of labelled office space undoubtedly represents a success for Green Star. But has it caused the revolution in the Australian construction industry that the GBCA claims?
It depends, of course, on your definition of “revolution”. In 2007 Apple introduced the iPhone, which clearly revolutionised communication. <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-01/half-of-australian-adults-now-own-a-smartphone/4494892" target="_blank">More than half of all Australians</a> now own a smartphone. In 2003, the GBCA introduced Green Star, which now covers 0.5% of Australia’s built environment. Clearly some revolutions happen faster than others.
To really kickstart the green building revolution in Australia, other market segments need their own tools like Green Star. This will require more leadership in the industry, in figuring out how to tempt the developers and owners of other building types to join in.
I hope that the Green Cities Conference inspires its participants to move the green building revolution beyond Australia’s CBDs, and past the commercially attractive top end of the construction market.
Jeroen van der Heijden is Assistant Professor of Environmental Governance at Australian National University.
Jeroen receives funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.
This article was originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. 
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jheijden-cBMeUt3AbR

Green building revolution? Only in high-end new CBD offices

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Making Australian cities truly resilient to extreme events is being held back by archaic planning. The majority of buildings don’t fall under new sustainability and resilience regulations, meaning private initiatives have to pick up the slack. It might sound trivial, but more resilient buildings could have prevented losses during events such as Queensland’s devastating 2011 floods.
Recently the journal Urban Policy and Research published a remarkable issue. It featured <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cupr20/31/3#.Upapw9ISaSo" target="_blank">opinion pieces</a> on the state of Australian cities and their future by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08111146.2013.832843" target="_blank">Anthony Albanese</a> (MP), <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08111146.2013.832844" target="_blank">Greg Hunt</a> (Environment Minister), <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08111146.2013.832846" target="_blank">Scott Ludlum</a> (Senator) and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08111146.2013.832845" target="_blank">Kirsty Kelly</a> (CEO, Planning Institute of Australia).
They stated that Australian cities need to become more sustainable, more liveable, and more resilient over the coming decades.
The <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/pab/files/Our_Cities_National_Urban_Policy_Paper_2011.pdf" target="_blank">broader discussion on the strength of Australian cities to date</a> is constructive and points in the right direction. But the proposals on the table have two latent defects. One is an unwillingness to tackle the issue of “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_clause" target="_blank">grandfathering</a>” existing buildings into new regulation. The other is an over-reliance on collaboration between government, businesses and citizen groups.
The problem of grandfathering
<a href="https://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=3387" target="_blank">Around the globe</a> the traditional approach to strengthening cities is by introducing new regulation. In Australia this is evidenced by the ratcheting up of the <a href="https://www.abcb.gov.au/about-the-national-construction-code" target="_blank">National Construction Code</a>. There is however a major problem that new regulations cannot address.
Existing buildings are normally exempted from new regulations. This process is referred to as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_clause" target="_blank">grandfathering</a>. Existing buildings make up the majority of buildings in a city (about 98%), and they are replaced very slowly (about 1% year). Grandfathering in effect allows for the maintenance of weak links in achieving truly sustainable, liveable and resilient cities.
This problem of grandfathering has been picked-up by, among others, the <a href="https://www.buildingresilience.org.au/" target="_blank">Australian Resilience Taskforce</a>. It claims that much financial harm and possibly even casualties could have been prevented from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932011_Queensland_floods" target="_blank">Queensland floods</a> (2010/2011) if only existing buildings had been more resilient (read: if they had complied with current-day building regulation).
Similar issues come to the fore in discussions about the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/nyregion/new-building-codes-passed-after-lessons-from-hurricane-sandy?_r=0">devastation caused by hurricane Sandy that hit New York</a> in 2012.
Read more over page
 

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Overcoming the weak link
<a href="https://www.envirovoluntarism.info/EnviroVoluntarism_ArrangementsStudied">All over the world</a> citizen groups, businesses and governments seek to overcome this weak link in urban sustainability, liveability and resilience. In Australia they are particularly active in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08111146.2013.769156#.UZ_bMtK1HLc">doing so</a>. Below are some of the most impressive efforts.
In 2010, owners of Sydney-based apartment units came together. They wanted to install solar panels on their existing strata-buildings to reduce their electricity bills, but Australian law stood in their way for doing so.
They started <a href="https://www.greenstrata.com.au/">Green Strata</a> and brought their problem to the attention of the City of Sydney. The City provided them with a small grant. This has helped Green Strata to grow out to an internationally recognised organisation that provides a wealth of information to strata-owners.
They have shown that strata-buildings can save more than <a href="https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/vision/sustainability/sustainable-city-living/sustainable-apartments">80% of their communal energy consumption</a>, which significantly reduces the energy bill as well as carbon emissions.
In 2003, <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/">Green Star</a> was launched by leaders in the construction industry. They wanted to show their buildings outperform others in terms of sustainability.
To give insight into the relative performance of a building they developed a labelling scheme. For instance, a six-star rated building shows that it outperforms a three-star one. Now, building tenants are willing to <a href="https://www.ucei.berkeley.edu/PDF/seminar20090130.pdf">pay higher rents</a> for buildings with positive labels, especially for commercial buildings.
Green Star has achieved considerable success in improving the sustainability of new commercial buildings in Australia, with <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/green-star-overview/">7.2 million square metres</a> already labelled. Green Star is now moving into the market for <a href="https://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/green-star-performance/">existing buildings</a>.
In terms of government, the City of Sydney started the <a href="https://www.sydneybetterbuildings.com.au/">Better Buildings Partnership</a> in 2011, seeking to reduce the carbon emissions of Sydney’s 14 major property owners’ existing buildings. Together these produce about 25% of Sydney’s emissions, mostly due to energy inefficiency.
As a result of being informed on energy efficiency by the City of Sydney and by sharing information among each other, these 14 property owners have saved <a href="https://www.sydneybetterbuildings.com.au/2013/energy-efficient-buildings-save-landlords-25-million/">$25 million</a> on their energy bills, and reduced emission of up to <a href="https://www.sydneybetterbuildings.com.au/2013/energy-efficient-buildings-save-landlords-25-million/">70%</a>.
Strong cities through collaboration?
In the above examples, and in <a href="https://www.envirovoluntarism.info/EnviroVoluntarism_ArrangementsStudied">many others</a>, “collaboration” is the key-word in how citizen groups, businesses and governments seek to address the weak link in urban sustainability, liveability and resilience. But <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2204524">is collaboration enough</a>?
My<a href="https://regnet.anu.edu.au/content/voluntary-environmental-governance-project"> international research</a> shows it is not, and shows that there is an <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11077-013-9184-z">over-reliance on collaboration</a>. I see two shortcomings in collaboration for stronger cities.
First, they are often small innovations in a predominantly conservative industry. Action is needed to scale up these initiatives.
Second, they are isolated pockets of sustainability, liveability and resilience. Linking them could make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Regulation and coordination may be required.
Here I see a role for government unaddressed in Australia’s <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/pab/files/Our_Cities_National_Urban_Policy_Paper_2011.pdf">National Urban Policy</a>. Government should support and link local collaborations, draw lessons from these and communicate those, and replicate best practices throughout the nation.
Yet, to achieve truly strong cities we need to stop grandfathering existing buildings and make them subject to current-day regulations. The collaborations show that the future-proofing of existing buildings saves costs.
When disaster strikes, it may save lives as well.


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Jeroen van der Heijden is Assistant Professor of Environmental Governance at <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/australian-national-university">Australian National University</a>
Jeroen van der Heijden receives funding from the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research. He is affiliated with the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) at the Australian National University, and the Law School at the University of Amsterdam.
This article was originally published at <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/towards-truly-resilient-cities-stop-being-soft-on-old-buildings-21071">original article</a>.
 
 
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Jeroen van der Heijden

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