Posted in Green Building Growth

How Can We Make our Cities More Liveable?

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Living architecture is part of a broader notion of green infrastructure that also encompasses water sensitive urban design, integrated water cycle management, green streets, urban food, and the urban forest.

When combined, these elements can reduce the negative impacts of urbanisation to make our cities more liveable.

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The challenges of establishing living architecture in Australia

Green roofs, walls, and facades are more common in other countries than in Australia.

In the northern hemisphere, the climate is generally cooler and they have fewer extremely hot days with rainfall distributed relatively evenly across the year.

Living architecture is particularly prevalent in Singapore. This is not only because of their tropical climate with constant temperatures and rainfall, but also due to the direct support of their government, which actively encourages and even mandates for green roofs, walls, and facades.

It is a considerably different challenge getting living architecture to successfully establish itself and remain vigorous on buildings in Australian cities.

Our climate has frequent hot days and extended periods of little or no rainfall. It is essential that these elements are designed with climate in mind.

Key considerations include plant species selection as well as careful design of the substrates and horticultural systems that support them. Irrigation is a critical consideration in Australian cities.

Perhaps due to our challenging climate, the perception of green roofs, walls and facades is that they generally won’t work; people feel it is just too hot, too windy, and the plants will die. In addition, the development industry generally perceives them as being too costly, needing too much water, and involving too much maintenance. The underlying perception is that the costs of these things outweigh the benefits.

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Sustainable living put to the test in Bondor-QUT study partnership

Sustainable housing is increasingly sought-after by Australians – but how effective are current strategies and products used in sustainable construction?

A study, which sees Queensland University of Technology (QUT) team up with Bondor, aims to find out.

Residential homes in each state constructed using Bondor’s innovative InsulLiving® building products, InsulWall® and SolarSpan®, will be monitored over an extended period of time to evaluate how Bondor’s high performance thermal building system meets the needs of the residents in relation to both energy cost savings and comfort.

Bondor, sustainable livingQUT’s Dr Wendy Miller and Bondor have been working closely since 2009 when Bondor first began marketing to residential homes. This is their third joint project.

The goal of the project is to develop an Innovations Adoption Toolkit (IAT) that will enable housing supply chain agents to identify and implement innovations with benefits for all stakeholders.

Bondor’s InsulLiving® national sales manager Paul Adams said Bondor’s long-term partnership with Dr Miller and QUT was an excellent way to continually review the benefits of building products and construction methods that promote sustainable living.

“As always, we are excited to be a part of this project and look forward to seeing the results,” he said.

“Anything which works towards a more streamlined and widespread approach to sustainable living is something which we at Bondor are enthusiastic about.”

Dr Miller said the project would look at innovation within all areas of the housing market, from homeowners and real estate agents to builders and manufacturers like Bondor.

“This particular project came about from previous research saying that sustainable housing wasn’t a focus in standard methods of housing construction, and it was hard to cater for customers who wanted something more sustainable,” said Dr Miller.

“So we wanted to find out if there were leaders in the market working on construction methods which lent themselves to sustainable living, and how they were doing so.

“We are hoping to show that doing things differently to ‘business as usual’ has benefits for everyone – the supplier and the consumer.”

Each home under analysis will be measured in a range of areas including temperature, electrical circuits, thermal imaging and air tightness.

The project began seven months ago and ends in 2017, with the first set of results to be available from mid-2015.

Further information on the study and a full overview of expectations: Toolkit for transforming Australian housing: behaviour, culture and practices.

 

 

Business Imperative and Market Demand Driving Green Building Growth

 

World Green Building TrendsAs sustainability and energy efficiency initiatives take hold around the world, firms are finding business value and opportunities from green building, including the opportunity for new environmentally responsible products, according to McGraw-Hill Construction’s latest SmartMarket Report, “World Green Building Trends – Business Benefits Driving New and Retrofit Market Opportunities in Over 60 Countries,” released today. The report, developed in partnership with United Technologies Corp. (UTC), is based on a study of global green building trends and aims to discern drivers of the green building marketplace.

According to the study, firms are shifting their business toward green building, with 51 percent of respondents planning more than 60 percent of their work to be green by 2015. This is a significant increase from the 28 percent that said the same for their work in 2013 and double the 13 percent in 2008.

This growth is not a trend localized to one country or region. From 2012 to 2015, the number of firms anticipating that more than 60 percent of their work will be green:

    • More than triples in South Africa;
    • More than doubles in Germany, Norway and Brazil;
  • Grows between 33 and 68 percent in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.

“This report confirms that the green building movement has shifted from ‘push’ to ‘pull’—with markets increasingly demanding no less than green buildings,” said John Mandyck, chief sustainability officer, UTC Climate, Controls & Security. “By promoting greater efficiencies for energy and water, green buildings lower building costs while conserving the earth’s precious resources. This powerful combination of built-in payback with environmental stewardship creates a new value proposition that is accelerating green building in all regions of the globe.”

The key driver to going green, according to the survey, is that now green building is a business imperative around the world. In the 2008 report, McGraw-Hill Construction found that the top driver for green building was “doing the right thing.” However in 2012, business drivers such as client and market demand are the key factors influencing the market.

“The acceleration of the green building marketplace around the world is creating markets for green building products and technologies, which in turn will lead to faster growth of green building,” said Harvey Bernstein, vice president of Industry Insights and Alliances at McGraw-Hill Construction. “And the fact that green is growing in all parts of the world indicates that there are market opportunities in both established markets as well as developing countries.”

These opportunities are mapping against expected benefits:

    • 76 percent report that green building lowers operating costs
  • More than one third point to higher building values (38 percent), quality assurance (38 percent), and future-proofing assets (i.e., protecting against future demands) (36 percent)

Global industry professionals have high expectations of the operating cost benefits of green building—19 percent believe their operating costs will decrease by 15 percent or more over the next year (51 percent believe there will be increases of 6 percent or more), and 39 percent believe they will see savings of 15 percent or more over the next five years (67 percent expect savings of 6 percent or more).

In 2012, 89 percent of global industry professionals report using or specifying a green building product, and even more—91 percent—expect to do so by 2017. The most significant green building product opportunities are in the categories of electrical, mechanical, and thermal and moisture protection with at least 60 percent of survey respondents stating that they had installed or specified products in these categories in 2012, with a slightly higher percentage expecting to do so by 2017.

Given its importance, measuring lower operating costs is also the most used metric to evaluate green building performance—reported by 52 percent. These benefits are particularly important given that they can offset the higher initial costs that 76 percent of the industry report as the biggest challenge to building green.

The findings published in the report are drawn from a McGraw-Hill Construction survey of firms across 62 countries around the world. Firms include architects, engineers, contractors, consultants and building owners. The sample was drawn from firm members of the World Green Building Council in 62 countries, other global industry associations, and the ENR Top Lists. Of the respondents, 92 percent are members of Green Building Councils around the world. The results include a feature of nine countries with sufficient sample for statistical analysis. The study expands and contrasts against McGraw-Hill Construction’s 2008 Global Green SmartMarket Report study. Given the survey sample source, McGraw-Hill Construction compared the sample against a non-GBC member audience, which was comparable in terms of involvement in green and planned activity. Further, the U.S. sample was consistent with McGraw-Hill Construction’s extensive analysis of the U.S. construction market through its Dodge project data.

The study was produced in partnership with United Technologies with support from the World Green Building Council and the U.S. Green Building Council. Other research association partners include the Chartered Institute of Buildings, International Federation of Consulting Engineers (Fédération Internationale Des Ingénieurs-Conseils), Association for Consultancy and Engineering, Conseil International du Bâtiment (International Council for Building), Architect’s Council of Europe, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. A separate survey of global manufacturing firms was also conducted.

For more key findings from the World Green Building Trends SmartMarket Report, visit http://analyticsstore.construction.com/index.php/world-green-building-trends-smartmarket-report-2013.html