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Building the case for greener climate-friendly homes
DOES Australia need a national certification system to define precisely what constitutes a "green" house? In the January issue of TransScan we reported how Perth was fast becoming a city of "shrunken gardens". In fact many of Perth's newest houses are now anything but "green" - raising the question of whether standards should be set simply to ensure that new designs do not exacerbate the problems of climate change and in some cases even cause new social problems.
In this article we take a further look at the shrunken garden issue through the eyes Kathryn Ringvall, a professional environmentalist with the City of Cockburn's Environmental Service. Besides her involvement in Cockburn's sustainability and environment education program, Ms Ringvall is currently conducting a PhD research study with Curtin University. She is investigating just how "green" the latest crop of "green residential developments" really are.
Worrying trend
Perth's "shrunken gardens" were first highlighted by Queensland's Professor Tony Hall who found that no matter what the size of the land plot, Perth builders are erecting houses that extended practically over the entire block - including the space that for generations has provided a back yard. "I would certainly agree with Professor Hall that the 'shrunken garden' syndrome is a worrying trend and not only from the perspective of a loss of 'green' space and therefore amenity," Ms Ringvall says.
"From a sustainability perspective it has a number of disturbing issues. Environmentally the issues of increased 'heat sinks' and runoff are obvious and with the rising prevalence of climate change these will likely be significant problems in the long term.
Are houses too big? "Economically it might initially seem sensible to reduce the infrastructure required for our growing suburbs, yet as the ABS 2001 Census has recently reported the size of our families are indeed shrinking yet the houses those families are living in have doubled and the energy and products they consume with it."
Ms Ringvall said that socially the picture was also grim. "If our private 'green space' has shrunk what is the effect on our emotional, mental and spiritual health? There may be public 'green space' just down the road but those spaces are generally not a clear substitute for personal and private space to chill out, meditate and maybe commune with the veggie patch."
Ms Ringvall suggests this "separation from nature" has the potential to lead further down the path of environmental degradation because people will no longer have the time or space to actually "feel" nature. "How many of us spent our childhoods building cubbies in the backyard or the bush block at the end of the street?" she says. "By reducing the 'green space' around our homes we're not just depriving animals of valuable habitats we're also depriving ourselves of vital spaces to relax and experience nature in the closest way we can."
Ms Ringvall said her own research study was aimed specifically at housing estates that are being marketed as "green" to discover their actual 'green-ness' using a framework of the triple bottom line. "What this implies is that for a developer to claim that a particular housing estate is 'green' or 'sustainable' means that not only is the settlement planning and pattern sustainable (it encourages walking and other forms of transport than just the private car, has high amenity, is well designed with plenty of public open space and is close to services etc) but that the actual houses that are built there are 'green' or sustainable too," she says. "That means the house needs little or no heating or cooling, has good solar orientation, good thermal mass and is an energy efficient design.
Environmental awareness
"Buyers are definitely starting to request more environmentally sensitive (and therefore sustainable) design principles in the homes packages that are being advertised, and there are a number of innovative developers that are leading the way in creating estates that at least attempt to be sustainable. "Anecdotally however my research has uncovered that there is still a significant gap between what buyers say they want and what actually gets built, and my research will in part investigate that gap." Ms Ringvall said she was hoping to discover the reason for the gap and whether it was perhaps misunderstood aesthetics, a lack of education or other market barriers that were preventing people from building more sustainable homes. She said although her study had only just begun it was already clear that Australia needed a national green certification scheme for domestic housing. "Even at this very early stage in my research it is obvious that what I might call 'green' is very different to what another would call 'green'," she said.
"In an increasingly competitive market like real estate development having an edge on your competitors can be worth a lot of money. It's too early in the research to be able to say whether 'green' marketed estates currently being developed are in fact 'green' or sustainable, but a simple drive around any of them and you can see houses that clearly are not 'green' or 'sustainable'. "Having a scientifically sound, and quantifiable standard for a 'green' estate means that there is a definable benchmark that anything below it can not be rightfully called a 'green' estate, and this is currently being tested by the Queensland branch of the UDIA (Urban Development Institute of Australia) with potentially good results.
"It's the same for any environmental label, the consumer deserves to know that what they are buying is actually 'green' and not 'greenwash' and that they are getting what they are paying extra for in some cases."
* Footnote: Kathryn Ringvall studied sustainability at Murdoch University's Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy and later gained a Masters researching sustainable public transport while a public servant at the Department of Transport and Regional Services in Canberra.
