No more buts: your buildings need to be climate resilient now!

When talking about building resiliency, we often hear a lot of “buts” – “But is it in the budget? But how will it affect tenant operations? But, what about the lease? But, what about the market?“

Don’t we want to raise our families in a healthier space, in more efficient buildings and with ways of doing things that create less or no waste? 

Let’s shed some light on the resilience of the built environment and what companies can do to future proof their assets.

The climate and nature’s interaction with the built environment creates a risk for all of us if the building structure, building services and management procedures are not built to withstand the forces of nature. 

The risk to the built environment depends on how disposable, resilient or rebuildable the building is, what back-up plans are in place to minimise the risk and how you can maintain building operations after a disaster.

How about we do something to improve efficiency and save the planet at the same time. 

Making your building climate resilient is a two step approach: 

• first, make the building as efficient as possible so as not to further contribute to climate change 
• second, make the building resilient to the forces of nature 

Lately, the price of not acting and not being prepared far outweighs the cost of downtime, fixing and replacing buildings and infrastructure. People continue to build on flood plains and rebuild in the same place after being flooded. Housing and infrastructure are still being repaired eight months after the Brisbane floods in February 2022 – so how long can you sustain not being able to use your building?

Minimising risks starts with initial design. I am amazed to still see new high-rise buildings having high exposure to the sun with dark to black facades, poor orientation to the sun, large sun exposure on east and west facades, floor to ceiling glazing panels, no external shading and relying on high performance dark glass to achieve National Construction Code compliance. 

Poor building design means bigger air conditioning plants taking up more building space, more energy consumed in construction and operation and services have higher initial and on-going costs. 

Minimising risks for existing buildings include changing building facades, upgrading building services, relocating building services, reducing your impact on the environment through efficiencies and having an action plan in place when your building fails, is isolated or shut down.

We already have the technology – but it’s about changing our mindset and thought processes

There are a number of national rating schemes available to assist with designing, building, benchmarking and operating buildings to help achieve maximum efficiencies or even net zero. Think Green Star, NABERS, WELL and GRESB.

There are many competent engineers available who can bench mark our buildings, design improvements, monitor activities and further improve. 

To reduce the impact on the environment, many companies are committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across corporate offices and operations to 50 per cent by 2030 from a 2019 base year. This represents 70 per cent of emissions at managed properties, with an aim to set science-based targets by 2025 and reach net zero emissions across the value chain by 2050.

Have you made any improvements to your building since the last disaster? 

In the last three years alone, major Australian cities and regional towns as well as other cities around the world have been severely affected by increasing storm intensity, flooding, rising temperatures, bush fires, smoke affecting outside air quality and interruption to electricity and water supply. All of which have caused damage to buildings, building services and downtime for tenants and lost revenue.

How resilient will your building be to increasing temperatures?

Increasing the capacity of your air conditioning system to combat temperature rise only adds to the climate problem, increases your power consumption and adds to climate change. 

Some fixes to reduce the air conditioning capacity requirements and energy consumption include adding external or internal shading devices to your windows, adding green facades and roof, changing your lighting to LED with smart controls, improving building air tightness, reviewing and upgrading building controls and temperature settings. The idea of changing the temperature range of 21-24C to 21-26C has been around for ages, but it is still rarely implemented. 

I am currently sitting in a Brisbane city office with a room temperature around 21C when outside is 33C. A typical Australian commercial lease stipulates indoor air temperatures of between 20-24C. Substantial energy could be saved if the room temperature was 25C – still a comfortable temperature.

Climate resilience also means resilience to strong winds, changing rainfall patterns and local flooding.

When was the last time you had an engineer review the facade or review the brackets and fixings to facade and roof mounted equipment? Are the fixings the correct size or are they corroded? 

Reducing water consumption helps reduce dependency on authority infrastructure. Upgrading to water efficient fixtures, fittings and appliances, incorporating rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling and installation of water tanks provide back-up supply when the local supply is compromised. Flood gates can be installed to building entries and car park driveways to minimise building flooding.

Installation of passive energy generation from solar panels on roofs and facades or wind generators can help reduce carbon emissions, relocate electrical boards above flood levels and installation of back-up power generators provide power when the local grid is interrupted.

What are you doing to improve the resilience of your property?

No more buts! Now is the time to act, to improve efficiencies, save on running costs, to future proof your investment and save your tenants from unnecessary repairs and downtime.