Green precincts the next big thing

Jeff Robinson's sustainable tour of the globe has led him to one big conclusion – sustainable precincts will replace sustainable buildings as the next big thing in the built environment.

Sustainability has taken Robinson, the sustainable property leader for engineering practice Aurecon, around the world. (Aurecon is the result of the recent merging of three companies: Connell Wagner, Africon and Ninham Shand.)

Robinson recently returned from South Africa and will soon embark on tours of both Australia and the United States, hunting sustainable best practice in both countries.

His South African trip, during which he presented a paper to the South African Green Building Council, taught him much about what we can learn from the green building experiences of other nations, particularly with rating tools.

The South African built environment is now dealing with issues that Australia dealt with five years ago, Robinson says.

But while the quality of Australian buildings, and the level of their sustainability, is higher here, Australia can learn from the South African experience.

South Africa, he says, has adapted the Green Building Council of Australia's Green Star rating tool. But in doing so, they have also enhanced it. For example, the South African tool has incorporated an air tightness test.

"A lot of our buildings are quite leaky," Robinson says.

The South Africans also allocate extra Green Star credit for the use of fuel-efficient vehicles, car pooling and car sharing, and reward enhanced local connectivity and sourcing materials used in construction locally.

Robinson's global green tours have reinforced his belief in the worth of international sustainability benchmarks.

"I think that's incredibly important," he says. " ... there's a huge amount of sharing of information about things that have worked in certain places, and what has not. It means that property owners with global portfolios can benchmark their assets around the world."

The benchmarks themselves will also change, from the measurement of energy, water and other consumables to the measurement of carbon emissions.

"I think we're very much heading towards that space at the moment. We've done a lot of work around designing zero-carbon buildings. We're seeing that as the next trend.

"I think the industry is very well set up to do zero-carbon buildings," he says, adding, "We understand energy efficiency. I think there is a growing sophistication in the marketplace about running sustainable buildings."

However, while the industry has the knowledge and capability to measure the offsets required to participate in carbon schemes, Robinson argues there is room for improvement, particularly in the field of property management.

While energy- and water-efficient buildings may reduce running costs, those costs may be offset by the increased cost of sophisticated systems required to run ever-more complex buildings in ever-more sophisticated fashion.


"There are a whole lot of variables that go into optimising a building," Robinson says. "Building owners and tenants have to recognise they may have to pay more for better outcomes."


"A huge area of opportunity is optimising building performance through BMS [building management systems]."

"You can have all the best infrastructure in the world, but if you're not monitoring and understanding how to optimise the performance you can't achieve the overall performance you're looking for."

Future trips overseas will likely confirm Robinson's prediction that the focus of the property industry will shift from the development of sustainable buildings to a wider platform that envelops sustainable precincts.

It is a trend that will solidify as the measurement of carbon emissions, and carbon trading schemes, takes hold.

Robinson will soon participate in a tour of the US organised by the Victorian Government.

The goal is to learn from the US experience in developing green buildings and sustainable precincts.

"That's going to be a growing trend in Australia," Robinson says.

Green precincts may be able to harness greater economies of scale for sustainable infrastructure, such as shared recycling, water processing and electricity generation.


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