You may be wondering why we decided to tackle the National Construction Code and green rating tools for our first event this year. As one pundit quipped when we told them – “So you’ve decided to eat the elephant?”
Hmmm, that serious?
Surely, we in this industry all feel enabled and encouraged to speak our mind, freely, openly, without fear or favour in the noble quest of the fastest trip to net zero and sustainability we can possibly find.
Not quite.
There’s plenty of critique, loads of talk, but it’s all off stage gossip among professionals, quietly trashing this or that standard or rule and reg with no particular scientific evidence to hand, just a lot of personal feelings.
For instance, the NCC is a nightmare. It’s too complicated, not logical; the rules on handrails for instance have no parallel anywhere else on Earth. It’s been captured by the woke people; its energy efficiency provisions are too strict; the industry can’t afford them; the complaints about energy efficiency are really cover for the access provisions; we’re providing too many things for disabled people; thank goodness the federal government has world.
The child safety rule preventing windows to be opened to no more than the span of a hand or so actually prevent any sort of natural ventilation.
There’s Australian Standards that contradict the NCC. It used to be a simple document that any tradie could access, understand and implement. Not now. It would take a truckload to move around if it were printed in old school hard copy.
Then there are the concerns about other green rating tools and the tick-a- box phenomenon and the growth of the green building industry to the point it’s mature and “everyone gets it” and pretty much wants to build as green as they can – they just don’t want to pay for the official rating.
You gotta ask: what do the financiers do with that kind of assurance – “the equivalent of a she’ll be right mate; we’re all green now”?
We suspect it will not pass muster.
Then there is the issue of whether the rating tools are climate aligned. To save another half star energy rating might look great on the annual report but what does it do for the dramatic improvements we need to actually keep climate heating to the 2 degree or 3 degree or whatever dystopian limits we’ve now acceded to.
Greening the grid is yet another issue that’s taxing minds; especially those who have no idea it’s under way. South Australia, Tasmania and possibly soon Victoria will be soon decarbonised. Plus there’s the Snowy River Hydro will soon come online – to answer the cat calls from the sceptics who keep talking about what happens when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow.
It’s called batteries folks. The potential of batteries in every home that can have one and community batteries to share for those that can’t is immense.
Getting alignment with the different climate zones in another issue.
And speaking of climates, benign ones in particular (for now at least) let’s please go easy on discussion around Passive House. We’ve slated that for a full debate in our Future Fit Housing Summit in May – as it’s a can of worms all of its own..
What they’re saying: On top of the war, there’s talk about the “shock and awe” big infrastructure spend under way or mooted – everything from data centres to fast trains and the perennial question of how to get the private sector to deliver more affordable housing – or was that just more “abundant housing”?.
If you got out and about in Sydney this week you might have picked up the big issues dominating the conversations – we suspect it’s much the same for the entire nation because increasingly people are starting to understand that built environment issues are in fact a major part of the political environment. When issues such as immigration and racism become entangled in questions of housing, costs, rents, transport, access to jobs and equity, they threaten to tip One Nation into the gatehouse of the Lodge, if not right through front doors.
These are the issues we absolutely must solve to keep this country from falling to sad fates of many others. It’s lack of affordable housing that has propelled the far right in Europe and elsewhere and now threatens Australia’s relatively benign peace.
Top of the list of the chit chat in town this week was the promise – yet again – of a fast train at the cost of $90+ billion from Western Sydney to Newcastle.
There’s a weird thing that goes on with travel. An assumption that the most amazing thing we can do is to have as much connectivity as possible and as much speed as possible.
But are we asking the right question?
What’s the problem we’re trying to solve here?
Is fast frequent travel some kind of human right?
What’s really needed in a sustainable, equitable standard of living on this amazing Earth.
If more of our roads were rutted tracks maybe we’d have fewer cars (electric or not), we’d build more thriving local communities –and we’d probably be a lot calmer.
As for the fast train, some sources that have invested considerable time looking at the Sydney to Newcastle proposal say we’d be spending $90+ billion to gain, say 20 minutes.
For what net gain?
Most observers would think that people would be thrilled to live in lovely Newcastle and commute to Sydney. But the possibility is that in such scenarios the bigger city continues to benefit economically and the smaller city withers to dormitory status with little commercial investment to keep the place thriving.
Data centres were another big topic of conversation. Several people we spoke to this week when asked what they’re working on all said, data centres.
Each bigger than the one before.
Melbourne is fighting Sydney to grab as many as possible.
An emerging problem, say their developers, is that they’re being demonised for their vast energy and water consumption.
And we are, nearly every single one of us, responsible for their growth as we feed our insidious addiction to everything from funny cat videos to crafting a new cyber reality that will eventually – maybe sooner than we think – replace our current reality and be far safer than the poor excuse we have now for a global order.
On the positive side maybe AI is possibly the only thing we humans have created that might come close to solving climate change, once it stops adding to global heating faster than any energy/water efficiencies it makes.
Australia looks like a grand place to plonk these things and we heard that the top knobs from AI USA have been in town and archly suggesting that “you ain’t seen nothing yet”.
We don’t need convincing.