The other 99%: retrofitting is the key to putting more Australians into eco-homes

Ralph Horne, RMIT University; Emma Baker, University of Adelaide; Francisco Azpitarte, University of Melbourne; Gordon Walker, Lancaster University; Nicola Willand, RMIT University, and Trivess Moore, RMIT University

Energy efficiency in Australian homes is an increasingly hot topic. Spiralling power bills and the growing problem of energy poverty are set against a backdrop of falling housing affordability, contested carbon commitments and energy security concerns.

Most people agree we need modern, comfortable, eco-efficient homes. This article is not about the relatively few, new, demonstration “eco-homes” dotted around Australia. It is about the rest of our housing.

These mainly ageing homes might have had energy efficiency improvements done over the years, but invariably are in need of upgrading to meet modern standards of efficiency and comfort.

---

Read more:
Thinking about a sustainable retrofit? Here are three things to consider

---

Since 2006, all new-build housing must meet higher energy efficiency standards. But we add only around 1% to the new housing stock each year.

Policies to improve energy efficiency in the other 99% are more fragmented. The focus is almost entirely on market-based incentives to “retrofit”. By this we mean material upgrades to improve housing energy and carbon performance.

The transition has begun

Nevertheless, a major retrofit transition is under way. In the last decade, around one in five Australian households has installed solar panels. More than three million upgrades have been carried out through the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (now Victorian Energy Upgrades) initiative.

These impressive numbers describe a nationally important intervention. But does this mean we will soon all get to live in eco-homes, rather than just a lucky few?

Current retrofitting activity has occurred unevenly and may contribute to longer-term inequalities.

For example, rebates for deeper retrofits often are more accessible to the better-off home owners. They have matching cash and also rights to make major upgrades (as opposed to renters). This entrenches the existing reality that low-income renters tend to live in less energy-efficient homes.

Similarly, in the UK, retrofit incentives haven’t always successfully targeted those most in need. The distribution of costs has contributed to pushing up energy prices for those already in energy poverty. In Australia, up to 20% of households were already in energy poverty before recent price rises.

Thus, if poorly targeted and funded, energy efficiency initiatives might make existing dynamics worse and add to the cumulative vulnerabilities of housing affordability stress.

---

Read more:
Housing stress and energy poverty – a deadly mix?

---

Keeping track of how homes rate

We cannot effectively monitor this. This is because Australia has no robust, longitudinal national database of property condition. There is no established, widespread practice of property owners obtaining property condition reports that set out the energy-efficiency performance and the most viable improvements that could be made.

This means we do not have a systematic way of knowing what we should do next to our homes, even if we are lucky enough to own them and have some cash available, as well as the time and motivation to retrofit.

To the rescue, at least in Victoria, is the new Victorian Residential Efficiency Scorecard. This is an advance on previous attempts (as in the ACT and Queensland) to develop comparable assessments of the energy efficiency and comfort levels of your home. Although voluntary, the scorecard will provide owners with a report on their home and a list of measures they can consider to transform it “eco-homewards”.

So, is the scorecard the answer to our problems? Will it bring forward the date when we can all live in comfy eco-homes? It will certainly help.

Since 2010, the European Union has mandated ratings of how a building performs for energy efficiency and CO₂ emissions.

The European Union has had a mandatory system since the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive. The evidence suggests this has raised awareness of energy efficiency by literally putting labels of buildings in your face when you are deciding where to buy. It’s much like Australians have become used to energy efficiency labels on fridges and other appliances. However, evidence of this awareness actually leading to upgrade activity is more mixed and, in some cases, disappointing.

In short, we need the scorecard and should welcome it. However, we also need a set of other measures if we are to make the transformations to match our national policy objectives and our desires for a comfy eco-home.

What else needs to be done?

The research agenda is also shifting to explore the social and equity dimensions of the retrofit transition.

In areas where installation work on energy-efficiency/low-carbon retrofits is increasing, how is this working in households? Who makes decisions? How do they decide and with what resources? What or who do they call upon? And, more broadly, what are the positive or problematic consequences for equity and, therefore, for policy?

---

Read more:
What about the people missing out on renewables? Here’s what planners can do about energy justice

---

Emerging retrofit technologies and behaviours have broader social and economic contexts. This means we need to understand the wider meanings and practices of homemaking, the uneven social and income structures of households, and the home improvement service industry.

While the retrofit transition is arguably under way, its consequences and dynamics are still largely unknown. We need to refocus away from simply counting solar systems towards understanding retrofitting better. This depends on understanding both the households that are retrofitting their homes and the industries and organisations that supply them.

To get energy policies right and overcome energy poverty, we need to bring together studies and initiatives in material consumption, sustainability and social justice.

Ralph Horne, Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor, Research & Innovation; Director of UNGC Cities Programme; Professor, RMIT University; Emma Baker, Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Adelaide; Francisco Azpitarte, Ronald Henderson Research Fellow Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research & Brotherhood of St Laurence, University of Melbourne; Gordon Walker, Professor at the DEMAND Centre and Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University; Nicola Willand, Research Consultant, Sustainable Building Innovation Laboratory, RMIT University, and Trivess Moore, Research Fellow, RMIT University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Advertisement

Now you see us: how casting an eerie glow on fish can help count and conserve them

Biofluorescence makes researching cryptic species such as this Lizardfish easier and less harmful.
Maarten De Brauwer, Author provided

Maarten De Brauwer, Curtin University

News stories about fish often focus either on large fish like sharks, or on tasty seafood. So it might come as a surprise that more than half of the fish on coral reefs are tiny and well camouflaged.

This naturally makes them hard to find, and as a result we know very little about these so-called “cryptic” species.

Now my colleagues and I have developed a new method to make it easier to study these fish. As we report in the journal Conservation Biology, many of these species are “biofluorescent” – if you shine blue light on them they will reflect it back in a different colour. This makes them a whole lot easier to spot.

Cryptic fish such as the Moray species are easily detectible using this new method.
Maarten De Brauwer, Author provided

---

Read more:
Dazzling or deceptive? The markings of coral reef fish

---

Marine biologists try to collect essential information about species so as to help protect them. One of the most important pieces of information is estimating how many of these cryptic species are out there.

Now you ‘sea’ them.

These cryptic fishes are more important for us than people realise. They are highly diverse and hugely important to coral reef health. They are also food for the fish we like to eat, and provide incomes for thousands of people through scuba diving tourism.

These small fishes live fast and die young, reproducing quickly and being eaten by bigger fish almost as quickly. We do know that some species are dwindling in number. The Knsyna seahorse in South Africa is in danger of extinction, while many cryptic goby species in the Caribbean were being eaten by invasive lionfish before they had even been described, let alone counted.

Some cryptic species, such as this thorny seahorse (Hippocampus histrix) are more popular than other species in aquaria, for divers and as the subjects in movies.
Maarten De Brauwer, Author provided

Because cryptic fishes are so easy to miss, their total abundance is likely to be underestimated. When attempting to survey their populations, scientists generally had to resort to using chemicals to stun or kill the fish, after which they are collected and counted. This method is efficient, but it is not ideal to kill members of species that might be endangered.

Developing an efficient, non-destructive way to survey fish would benefit researchers and conservationists, and this is where biofluorescence comes in.

Biofluorescence or bioluminescence?

Biofluorescence is very different to bioluminescence, the chemical process by which animals such as deep-sea fish or fireflies produce their own light. In contrast, biofluorescent animals absorb light and reflect it as a different colour, so this process needs an external source of light.

Biofluorescence is most easily observed in corals, where it has been used to find small juveniles. In the ocean, biofluorescence can be observed by using a strong blue light source, combined with a diving mask fitted with a yellow filter.

Before… a scorpionfish captured without showing its biofluorescence, camouflaged against the rocks.
Maarten De Brauwer, Author provided

And after… the same scorpionfish in an image that captures its biofluorescence.
Maarten De Brauwer, Author provided

Recent research showed that biofluorescence is more common among fish than we previously realised. This prompted us to investigate whether biofluorescence can be used to detect cryptic fishes.

On the glow

We tested 230 fish species through the Coral Triangle to Australia’s north, and found that biofluorescence is indeed widespread in cryptic fish species.

It is so common, in fact, that the probability of a fish being biofluorescent is 70.9 times greater for cryptic species than for highly visible species.

But can this actually be used to improve our detection of cryptic fish species? The answer is yes.

Biofluorescence makes these seahorses much easier to spot.
Maarten De Brauwer, Author provided

We compared normal visual surveys to surveys using biofluorescence on one rare (Bargibant’s pygmy seahorse) and two common cryptic species (Largemouth triplefin and Highfin triplefin). Using biofluorescence we found twice as many pygmy seahorses, and three times the number of triplefins than with normal methods.

This method, which we have dubbed the “underwater biofluorescence census” makes detecting cryptic fishes easier, and counting them more accurate. While it might not detect all the animals in the way that surveys with chemicals do, it has the big benefit of not killing the species you’re counting.

A closer look at three large cryptic fish families (Gobies, Scorpionfishes, and Seahorses and Pipefishes) will tell you that they contain more than 2,000 species globally. The extinction risk of more than half of these species has not yet been evaluated. Many species that have been assessed are nevertheless classed as “data deficient” – a euphemistic way of saying that we don’t know enough to decide if they are endangered or not.

---

Read more:
Why you should never put a goldfish in a park pond … or down the toilet

---

As the majority of these cryptic species are likely to be biofluorescent, our new technique could be used to help figure out the conservation status of hundreds or even thousands of species. Our method is relatively cheap and easy to learn, and could potentially be used by citizen scientists all over the world.

Ultimately, the goal of scientists and conservationists alike is protecting marine ecosystems so we can have our seafood, enjoy our dives, and people can make a sustainable living off the ocean. Small cryptic fishes are essential in making all of this possible, and biofluorescent fish surveys can play a role in studying these understudied critters.

Maarten De Brauwer, PhD-candidate in Marine Ecology, Curtin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.