Given the wealth of green content that BPN has served up, Warren McLaren writes, especially since formally incorporating Environ into its editorial mix way back in 2002, readers might be forgiven for assuming that green building design was all pervasive, and dominated the architectural scene.
After all, the indicators are there, aren't they?
For example, 2012 is the Green Building Council of Australia's 10th birthday. In the past decade they've registered 530 Green Star projects, signed up 850 member companies, and accredited 4,500 building professionals.
When Ecospecifer started out as a joint project between RMIT and the Society for Responsible Design in 1999 it touted reviews of 150 green building materials. David Baggs and Mary Lou Kelly took the project under their wing in 2003, and with their guidance the database now references over 6,000 eco-products, materials and technologies, with the Ecospecifier websites eliciting over two million page views annually. (Handily disproving the myth that green building materials aren't readily available.)
The most recent figures released by the Clean Energy Council suggest that over six per cent of Australian households now have installed solar power. At first glance that doesn't sound like much, but digging a little deeper reveals just what a phenomenal uptake there has been by Aussie homeowners.
Jigsaw Housing are one group recognised for pushing green mainstream. Their Franklin House pictured serves as office and sustainable home showcase. Photography: Ben Wrigley
In 2006, the year An Inconvenient Truth started showing in cinemas, there were just 3,390 solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems on Australian household roofs. By August 2011 there were 513,585 such systems installed nationwide. With a whopping 230,000 of those installed in the first eight months of 2011.
This robust embrace of grid-connected solar power by Australian households saw us, by the spring of 2011, become one of planet's first countries to achieve "grid parity", whereby photovoltaic cells output electricity for the same price as normally charged by the traditional grid.
Solar hot water systems saw similar growth. As of 2006 we had 37,088 new systems installed to heat water for Australian homes. Three years later the rate of installations has soared to 201,783 heaters, more than fivefold increase.
The Australian Window Association have experienced related interest in the energy efficiency of their product speciality. Their (Window Energy Rating Scheme) WERS now showcases 150,000 rated window products from some 280 window manufacturer members. In late 2011 they launched the efficientglazing.net website with tools for consumers to see what money and carbon emissions they could save by installing better windows.
The Federal Government's "Your Home: Australia's guide to environmentally sustainable homes" website and printed manual is now, since its debut in 2001, in its fourth edition, with updates. The Commonwealth also has a new website, LivingGreener, comprising "information, how-to's & rebates for sustainable living." Even the Bureau of Meteorology have web data for "Comfortable, Low-energy Houses," explaining how readers across six different climatic zones can design or renovate to "have a comfortable home, save energy and dollars, reduce pollution, and protect the environment."
Yet somehow this information bombardment is simply not translating into significantly greener homes. A cursory drive around most housing estates and once vacant blocks will reveal a much less impressive picture. Homes still stubbornly oriented towards the street, bountiful northern aspects squandered, shading eaves shunned, single pane glazing, black or dark grey roofing materials, thumping great air conditioning units ¬ and the sad list goes on.
Why have we not seen more sustainable housing become the mainstream? Could it be that the market is still hostage to a raft of out-of-date, and untrue green building myths?
They 'cost way more'. This is one of the biggies, when it comes to those myths.
However a comprehensive US report 'The Cost of Green Revisited,' published in 2007, concluded: "there is no significant difference in average costs for green buildings as compared to non-green buildings. Many project teams are building green buildings with little or no added cost, and with budgets well within the cost range of non-green buildings with similar programs." While the focus of this report was not directly on housing, it bore out the findings of the 'Costs and Benefits of Green Affordable Housing' study, undertaken by New Ecology and the Tellus Institute, which indicated only a "green premium" of 2.42 per cent in total development costs was required to go 'green.'
Other researchers suggest this premium might be closer to five per cent. But they are quick to point out, and we paraphrase; "for 5 per cent, or less, we get buildings that use 30-50 per cent less energy to heat and cool, use 20 per cent less electricity and 10 to 20 per cent less water, as well as homes healthier to live in."
And therein lies the clincher. Well-considered green design, even if it does price out a tad more, is an investment, not a cost. Fifty seven per cent of Australians will live in the one home for longer than five years, with over a quarter staying put for 15 years or more.
The Sustainable Home Brisbane project, designed by architects BVN, found that a swag of green design features, from ceiling fans and clerestory louvres to rainwater tanks provided a return on investment well within 10 years. "Incorporating sustainable design adds only three per cent to building costs. And yet, the savings to your running costs over a 10-year period equate to up to $20,000."
We mentioned this myth to architect Axel Richter, who just shook his head in disbelief that this fallacy still has currency. Axel studied architecture in Karlsruhe, Germany, and has worked as an architect in Australia since 1996, establishing his own architectural practice in 2000. He is well placed to view the marketplace with a fresh viewpoint, pointing out that for many Australians the look of a home appears to be more paramount than the feel. Axel laments that instead of directing limited funds toward passive solar design, thus improving the living comfort of a dwelling, Australians appear more inclined to spring for the likes of visual amenities, in the realm of marble benchtops and designer tapware.
As a nation we have become myopic about sticker prices, unable, it seems, to calculate the long term impacts, either beneficial or detrimental, of operating costs. Maybe a home's resale value is the means better suited to dispelling the cost of green housing design myth.
A 2003 study of house remodelling in the USA found that the resale of a house with solar photovoltaic system, returned, on average, 160 per cent of value compared to 75 percent return on investment for comparably priced kitchen renovation. Landmark research entitled Energy Efficiency Rating and House Price in the ACT and published in 2008 by the Australian federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts covered similar ground, concluding that if "all other respects the houses are the same, the house with the higher EER [Energy Efficiency Rating] will command a higher price." Specifically that study noted that, "if the energy performance of a house improves by 1 star level, on average, its market value will increase by about three per cent."
Another persistent myth hangs on the premise that to be an eco home, the dwelling will somehow be a retrograde step visually, the building equivalent of wearing the proverbial burlap sack. In short, 'green homes look ugly'. Here again the truth is a casualty. Axel Richter, once more: "Like any other building 'green buildings' can be well designed or badly designed. 'green features' enable the architect to enhance the appearance of a building and create visual interest, but equally, a 'green home' can look like any 'normal home,'"
Even the major residential housing developers don't subscribe to this myth, with most of them having significantly 'green' display homes that wouldn't look out of place on any modern estate, as we showcased a few issues back.
Instead of blowing up things, maybe the popular TV show, MythBusters, should tackle some important myths holding back the mainstream adoption of sustainable housing design. They could also tackle the hoary old fallacies that green building is a fad, is less comfortable, is just all about energy, or that it doesn't work. As we've seen above, the evidence to the contrary is out there--by the Bobcat bucket load. It just needs to be put in front of the people.
