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The White Hat Guide to Energy & Resource Efficient and Environmentally Sustainable Buildings in Australia

Buildings that are energy and resource efficient are often labelled 'green buildings'. For reasons we have explained elsewhere, we at White Hat find the use of the word 'green' a somewhat mindless marketing term in the Australian context and prefer to use more objective terms such as environmentally sustainable design (ESD).

Site preparation and building

• Site preparation. What energy is used for site preparation? Does the preparation of the site have any significant effect on the environment?
• Building materials. Are there materials on site which can be recycled? What is the 'embedded energy' of the materials used?
• Building methods. What energy is consumed in the building process? Are the building methods environmentally friendly?

Impact on surrounding environment

Usage

• Heating and cooling. In many parts of Australia, heating or cooling a home or workplace consumes a large amount of energy.
• Water usage. In many parts of Australia, water is becoming a scarce and valuable commodity. An environmentally sustainable building may thus incorporate rainwater collection, black and grey water recycling and even 'water mining' (no, you don't want to know what that is.)
• Energy collection and generation.
• Waste recycling and disposal. What features have been built in to minimise waste disposal?
• Design for sustainable behaviour. For instance a city office block may contain bicycle storage and shower facilities to encourage bicycle rather than car use.
• Design for a healthy living/working environment. This may entail access to fresh air, use of low emission paints, carpets and workstations and many other considerations.

Maintenance & upgrading

• Regular maintenance. What are the energy and resource requirements for regular maintenance tasks such as window cleaning.
• Upgrading. Equipment, appliances and fittings are continually changing and improving. Will major energy consumption be required in order to upgrade (eg demolishing a reinforced concrete slab and then repouring concrete). For instance the Design Hub of RMIT in Melbourne (designed by architect Sean Godsell) has been designed so that the extensive solar energy generation capabilities built in to the external 'skin' can be upgraded to accommodate new solar technologies as they emerge.
• Reconfiguring. The requirements of a family or a business change with time. Can the building be reconfigured so that it remains productive as circumstances change?

End of life

• Repurposing. At the end of the building's useful life is it possible to use the structure, or part of it, for some other purpose.
• Demolition. What energy will be required for demolition and how many of the materials can be recycled?

Some related pages on this site

• The White Hat Guide to Energy & Resource Efficient and Environmentally Sustainable Buildings in Melbourne
• Environmentally Sustainable Design in The Water Cube, Beijing