The commercial property world might be in some kind of tectonic shift as it figures out how to deal with the psychological and economic drivers of so many people wanting to work from home, but in the green space, the mood is stronger and way more self-assured than The Fifth Estate has even seen it – in our 15 year history.
There’s so much happening. The dominant mood or word that surfaced from the Green Building Council’s annual Transform conference (we attended both days for once!) was maturity.
The event is where the wildly disparate elements of the sustainable built environment industry come together in what manages to feel like one big green family. Complete, of course, with its solid cores, splinter groups and the occasional factional discontents – which of course creates the diversity and friction that stimulates progress.
This industry has morphed from the comparatively simple, almost two dimensional challenge of making green buildings (though of course there’s nothing two dimensional about the complexity of that challenge today) to something much more ambitious and encompassing.
The problem keeps evolving.
It’s no longer enough to have good design now. Buildings must perform. And be seen to perform. With the proof sent all the way up the line to – wait – the finance manager and then the investors… and oh… the government.
Only a few short years ago the industry’s gaze turned from energy efficiency and renewable energy to embodied carbon and the shifting goal posts of another Moonshot burst of achievement.
Now it’s nature positive that’s the rage – and coming along fast behind it is social sustainability – and how to measure both in a way that is comparable and meaningful on the books is still a mind bender.
See our recent masterclass on Sustainability Reporting with Caroline Noller from Footprint Company, Michael Salvatico from S+P Global, Bruce Duyshart from Meld Stratgegies and Jon Clark from Dexus to get a sense of how hard it is.
Spoiler alert you’ll need to channel your inner nerd for some of the session.
Meanwhile this industry keeps attracting more nerds and smart people – the best, we reckon because they are the people most excited about the biggest challenge of our time – in humanity’s time in fact.
New industry segments have spawned the need for more reporting and disclosure. Next we surely have to call for mandatory minimum performance standards, right? Haven’t we had enough of that ideology that the brilliant raise up the dull? Well, they might but let’s not gamble on that.
At Transform Alexandra Banks partner, climate change and sustainability services, EY Oceania emphasised that the reporting now goes to the finance department and then right up the chain to the federal treasurer.
It’s why much of the talk about regulations and mandatory reporting is coming from Treasurer Jim Chalmers, she said, “not our environment ministers.”
“Regulation is catching up with community expectations now on what we should be doing to protect and restore the environment in this country.”
The pressure will keep coming, and from the financial sector, she said.
“That’s why the treasurer is talking about the regulations and mandatory climate reporting in the future and not our environment ministers.”
We can’t “solve” nature.
But can we wrap up nature like we can “wrap” up a green building?
Pollination’s Guy Williams said nature is not something that can be solved.
It’s something that needs our constant attention. It’s the thing that brings down the entire greening industry, we hear – people put in green roofs and walls and then think they will magically last as long as the bricks do.
Nope. Nature is a living breathing thing and, like we humans, needs constant maintenance and renewal (if we can get it).
How far the industry had come was encapsulated by Jorge Chapa, the Green Building Council’s long serving chief impact officer, in one of his typically lively and entertaining addresses on the first day of the conference.
The GBCA’s staff had been bowled over by the number of projects seeking
certification he said and in fact if anyone wanted to join the assessor panel there were openings. “We’re doubling the size of the team,” he shared.
On top of that, there were new resources being brought aboard to manage new sectors coming in for attention, such as industrial facilities and residential projects.
The spotlight is also turning to the GBCA’s product data base. Its 6000 products and 800 manufacturers was now expanding to 8000 products, Chapa said.
Positive Zero’s David Clark later explained that this was part of Six Star Green Star’s toughening-up process to raise the barrier and get industry working harder for their bright green stars.
A bigger focus on materials was key to this. The GBCA won’t certify the products says Clark who is an assessor on Green Star, but it will interrogate the makeup of the products to obtain a responsible product value (RPV) in carbon and other sustainability elements, to which it then allocates rating points.
It’s already making a difference, Clark said. In just a few years this program has propelled companies such as Boral and reinforcement supplier Infrabuild onto the certification bandwagon.
Which is good since these two products alone account for about 50 per cent of a building envelope’s carbon. he added.
Next cab off the rank (yes, another one) is a big focus on fitouts.
Chapa said that waste from refurbishments (or fitouts) made up about 30 per cent of all building waste.
The Fifth Estate knows this only too well after the nine massive ebooks we did on green fitouts and green leasing way back at the start of our own journey. (These are still available but free now only to TFE members, in our library section. DM us if you want to know more or need some help to download them).
And there are also precincts to worry about.
These increasingly important ways to deliver the built environment are complex and made up of the whole gamut of ESG – environmental, social and governance.
And getting it right matters.
“Research recognises that if anything, increasing the relationships between all of these are actually critical,” Chapa said. “You cannot just resolve one thing…the others behind you have to engage holistically. It’s also important that for this rating tool, we need to redefine what it means to be world leading.”
David Clark ended up writing a new “practical guidance” for the precinct tool. He told The Fifth Estate that key was to remember to plan for decades from now. Not only was it important to provide for electric vehicle charging and battery storage but also connection to the grid.
The only time you can truly justify going off grid is “when you are nowhere near an electricity grid.”
Nature rules
At the conference we caught up with many well known faces. Among them Matt Williams who left Lendlease about four years ago to join LCI Consultants and is now a principal.
The company is doing well, he said. It’s now 16 years old has 14 staff in Sydney under Williams’ leadership which is also national, five in Melbourne, three in Brisbane and one in each of Canberra and Perth.
Williams said he enjoyed the whole conference but among his favourites were the sessions on nature, particularly the session with Chris Hampson chief executive of Yerrabingin.
“I feel like it’s the next push for the industry”, he said.
There’s a lot to explore he said, like understanding how plants can filter water or air.
“As an engineer, I like the idea that nature is doing a job for us, almost like bio-mimicry and not just for aesthetics – it’s there because it’s doing a great job.”
He’s working on Mirvac’s project at Harbourside in Sydney that promises a massive 4000 square metre green roof.
Williams would like to see more native species used in urban settings – they might be more hardy that the European plants that lasted just three days when the water failed on one major building.
And our takeaway?
Strap in – there’s so much more work to do!