The Green Building Council of Australia has called for the property industry to step up its transition to all-electric buildings as new research from the US proves how detrimental it is in commercial kitchens.
The call also comes at a time when the Victorian opposition, expected to win government on 28 November, says it will remove the ban on gas in new buildings, slated to come into force in March next year.
Chief executive of the GBCA Davina Rooney on Tuesday called on the property industry to continue its transition to all electric buildings – and kitchens.
She pointed to the new research, a US peer-reviewed study that found indoor heat and pollutants exceeded recommended limits in about “70 per cent of gas-powered kitchens”.
The study recorded “nitrogen dioxide levels above the World Health Organization’s hourly air quality guideline, despite having commercial-grade ventilation.”
A chef’s personal heat exposure during a five hour service averaged “temperatures of 92 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius) and a peak temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius), both well above the US’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s proposed heat regulations.”
All-electric kitchens, however, were “dramatically cooler”.
The study was undertaken by researchers from PSE Healthy Energy, the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and New York University Grossman School of Medicine, in collaboration with Chef Christopher Galarza, published early this month in Environmental Research Letters.
The Global Cooksafe Coalition said: “While the research was conducted in the United States, the commercial cooking environment it examined is relevant to Australia, where chefs work with comparable gas-fired commercial cooking appliances and mechanical extraction systems.”
The dangers of domestic gas cooking are well documented.
“Gas contains highly toxic chemicals like benzene and nitrogen dioxide, and these leak into the air, even when the stove is off. Research shows that children living in a home with a gas stove have a 42 per cent increased risk of having current asthma and a 24 per cent greater chance of being diagnosed with asthma at some point in life,” the coalition website says.
One experiment showed that within 30 minutes of a gas stove being switched on “the amount of nitrogen dioxide in the unventilated kitchen has soared about five times higher than the Australian outdoor air quality standard”.
The property industry can lead
The GBCA’s Davina Rooney said the property industry could contribute to better buildings for the environment and for people by choosing to go all-electric.
It also made sense commercially. “Buildings last a long time. Installing fossil fuel infrastructure today risks locking in equipment that may ultimately need to be replaced,” she said.
This was especially a risk for owners of buildings as Australia’s grid transitions to renewable energy.
The industry was already moving towards an all-electric future.
Since May this year, she said, “all new projects registering under Green Star Buildings v1.1 are required to be all-electric, regardless of the Green Star rating they are targeting.”
And, she asked: “When we design a building, how much thought do we give to the people who will eventually work in its kitchen?”
“We often talk about electrification through the lens of carbon. More recently, that conversation has broadened to include energy costs, resilience and energy security.
“But electrification is also about people.
But a Liberal and Nationals government would frame the critical issue as “energy choice” calling the sitting government’s plans to ban gas “undemocratic”.
