Tag Archives for houses

Managed retreat of settlements remains a tough call even as homes flood and coasts erode


Tayanah O’Donnell, Australian National UniversityIt is no joke that New South Wales residents are in the midst of their fourth “one in 100 year” event since January 2020. Much of the Australian east coast continues to experience heavy rainfall, strong winds and abnormally high tides. All will make the current floods worse.

As climate tipping points are reached and the Earth’s systems begin to buckle under the strain, the need for considered adaptation strategies is overwhelmingly clear. One of these strategies is for human settlements to retreat from areas most at risk, whether from floods or bushfires. While something needs to be done to ensure future generations do not suffer catastrophic consequences, managed retreat is a complex tool.

These strategic decisions in the next five to ten years will be challenging. And these decisions really matter: where and how do we build residential areas that can cope with a climate-changed world?



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Yes, Australia is a land of flooding rains. But climate change could be making it worse

What is managed retreat?

Managed retreat can be defined as “purposeful, co-ordinated movement of people and assets out of harm’s way”. Managed retreat more often refers to the retreat of existing development out of harm’s way. Planned retreat is usually the preferred phrasing for new development that is planned for possible future relocation.

Both planned and managed retreat are focused on the permanent relocation of people and assets, as opposed to the evacuations we are seeing now.

Managed retreat is experiencing a resurgence in scientific literature as the impacts of climate change become increasingly frequent, severe and more obvious. These impacts bring with them a recognition of the need for adaptation even as we urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course, relocating away from high-risk locations is not an entirely new concept. However, managed retreat in response to a changing climate is not only complex, but also has a lot of political baggage. The complexity spans legal, financial, cultural and logistical factors among others: the political baggage seemingly associated with effective climate action in Australia often hinders governments’ abilities to respond properly.

Societies around the world need to grapple with the reality that managed retreat will become a suite of tools to respond to crisis. Insurers will not always be available, and the costs to governments (and therefore to you, the taxpayer) of responding to increasing rates of disasters, irrespective of insurance, will continue to grow exponentially.



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How insurers can get better at responding to natural disasters

Responding to events after the fact is an unsustainable model of adaptation. There is, too, a need to acknowledge settlement needs and historical built environment legacies that have put significant state infrastructure in harm’s way.

Managing difficult trade-offs

We know trade-offs need to be made between what we protect and what we let go in suburban floodplain areas.

Legal machanisms to force people and assets to move can and must be thoughtful. The implementation of managed retreat in urbanised areas faces multiple hurdles. These include:



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Coastal law shift from property rights to climate adaptation is a landmark reform

It is wrong to see managed retreat as the panacea for climate risk and development in vulnerable locations. In many cases, once development is in place, it can be more appealing to some to protect an at-risk area rather than work towards managed retreat. Even where managed retreat has been successful, as in the case of the flood-prone township of Grantham, it was not without pain.

There are also other, more basic needs, such as having land available where people can relocate.

Working out highest and best use of land

There are ways that land can be used for its highest and best use at a point in time. For example, tools like easements can enable vulnerable land to be used, subject to event-based or time-based trigger-point thresholds. Once these thresholds are reached, the land is put to some other use. The advantage of these machanisms, especially for new development, is that owners are clear about the risks from the start.

This still leaves us with hard decisions about responding to at-risk current developments. Putting off these hard decisions and leaving them for future decision-makers will result in a huge injustice, because there will be catastrophe as Earth’s tipping points are passed. Development decisions made now will determine the impacts on our children and grandchildren.

Urban development decisions for both new and existing development in this coming decade demand courage and leadership. If we accept that Australian cities will continue to expand and increase in density, then we have some serious questions to ask ourselves. What kind of future do we want?

Some areas should simply not be developed.



Read more:
‘Climigration’: when communities must move because of climate change

There is a risk that an over-reliance on managed retreat will over-simplify the challenge of working out what to do about development in at-risk locations. There is a clear need to separate out what to do about current and past developments, and how to approach new developments.

The latter is easy – do not rebuild residential homes in at-risk areas. Governments should repurpose these zones for uses that permit nature-based solutions to the need to adapt to climate change.

Current development is much more complex. In some cases, managed retreat – done thoughtfully and considerately – will be the only option.The Conversation

Tayanah O’Donnell, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Greenwashing the property market: why ‘green star’ ratings don’t guarantee more sustainable buildings


Igor Martek, Deakin University and M. Reza Hosseini, Deakin University

Nothing uses more resources or produces more waste than the buildings we live and work in. Our built environment is responsible for half of all global energy use and half of all greenhouse gas emissions. Buildings consume one-sixth of all freshwater, one-quarter of world wood harvests and four-tenths of all other raw materials. The construction and later demolition of buildings produces 40% of all waste.

The sustainability of our buildings is coming under scrutiny, and “green” rating tools are the key method for measuring this. Deakin University’s School of Architecture and Built Environment recently reviewed these certification schemes. Focus group discussions were held in Sydney and Melbourne with representatives in the field of sustainability – including government, green consultancies and rating tool providers.

Two main concerns emerged from our review:

  1. Sustainability ratings tools are not audited. Most ratings tools are predictive, while those few that take measurements use paid third parties. Government plays no active part.

  2. The sustainability parameters measured only loosely intersect with the building occupants’ sustainability concerns. Considerations such as access to transport and amenities are not included.

Focus group sessions run by Deakin University helped identify problems with current sustainability ratings.
Author provided



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Construction industry loophole leaves home buyers facing higher energy bills

That’s the backdrop to the sustainability targets now being adopted across Australia. Australia has the highest rate of population growth of any developed country. The population now is 24.8 million. It is expected to reach between 30.9 and 42.5 million people by 2056.

More buildings will be needed for these people to live and work in. And we will have to find ways to ensure these buildings are more sustainable if the targets now being adopted are to be achieved.

Over 80% of local governments have zero-emissions targets. Sydney and Canberra have committed to zero-carbon emissions by 2050. Melbourne has pledged to be carbon-neutral by 2020.

So how do green ratings work?

Each green rating tool works by identifying a range of sustainability parameters – such as water and energy use, waste production, etc. The list of things to be measured runs into the dozens. Tools differ on the parameters measured, method of measurement, weightings given and the thresholds that determine a given sustainability rating.

There are over 600 such rating tools worldwide. Each competes in the marketplace by looking to reconcile the credibility of its ratings with the disinclination of developers to submit to an assessment that will rate them poorly. Rating tools found in Australia include Green Star, NABERS, NatHERS, Circles of Sustainability, EnviroDevelopment, Living Community Challenge and One Planet Communities.

So, it is easy enough to find landmark developments labelled with green accreditations. It is harder to quantify what these actually mean.



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Green building revolution? Only in high-end new CBD offices

Ratings must be independently audited

Government practice, historically, has been to assure building quality through permits. Planning permits ensure a development conforms with city schemes. Building permits assess structural load-bearing capacity, health and fire safety.

All this is done off the plan. Site inspections take place to verify that the building is built to plan. But once a certificate of occupancy is issued, the government steps aside.

The sustainability agenda promoted by government has been grafted onto this regime. Energy efficiency was introduced into the residential building code in 2005, and then into the commercial building code in 2006. At first, this was limited to new buildings, but then broadened to include refurbishment of existing structures.

Again, sustainability credentials are assessed off the plan and certification issued once the building is up and running. Thereafter, government walks away.

We know of only one longitudinal energy performance study carried out on domestic residences in Australia. It is an as-yet-unpublished project conducted by a retiree from the CSIRO, working with Indigenous communities in Far North Queensland.

The findings corroborate a recent study by Gertrud Hatvani-Kovacs and colleagues from the University of South Australia. This study found that so-called “energy-inefficient” houses, following traditional design, managed under certain conditions to outperform 6- and 8-star buildings.

Sustainability tools must measure what matters

Energy usage is but the tip of the iceberg. Genuine sustainability is about delivering our children into a future in which they have all that we have today.

Home owners, on average, turn their property around every eight years. They are less concerned with energy efficiency than with real estate prices. And these prices depend on the appeal of the property, which involves access to transport, schools, parks and amenities, and freedom from crime.

Commercial property owners, too, are concerned about infrastructure, and they care about creating work environments that retain valued employees.

These are all core sustainability issues, yet do not come up in the rating systems we use.

The ConversationIf government is serious about creating sustainable cities, it needs to let go of its limited, narrow criteria and embrace these larger concerns of “liveability”. It must embody these broader criteria in the rating systems it uses to endorse developments. And it needs an auditing and enforcement regime in place to make it happen.

Igor Martek, Lecturer In Construction, Deakin University and M. Reza Hosseini, Lecturer in Construction, Deakin University

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

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.



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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.



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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?



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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.

The ConversationTo 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.

Low-energy homes don’t just save money, they improve lives


File 20170717 6046 1bm1rcr
Eco-houses at Scotland’s Housing Expo, Inverness. What is it like to live in a house like this?
via Wikipedia, CC BY-SA

Stephen Berry, University of South Australia; David Michael Whaley, University of South Australia, and Trivess Moore, RMIT University

Household energy use is a significant contributor to global carbon emissions. International policy is firmly moving towards technology-rich, low- and near-zero-energy homes. That is, buildings designed to reduce the need for additional heating, cooling and lighting. They use efficient or renewable energy technology to reduce the remaining energy use.

But what about the experiences of people who live in homes of this standard? Are these homes comfortable, easy to operate, and affordable? Do people feel confident using so-called smart energy technology designed for low energy use? What support systems do we need to help people live in low-energy, low-carbon houses?

We worked with other Australian and UK researchers to understand what it’s like to live in purpose-built low-energy housing. As part of this project, researchers from Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Salford in the UK visited South Australia to collect data from Lochiel Park Green Village, one of the world’s most valuable living laboratories of near-zero energy homes.

Lochiel Park’s 103 homes were built in the mid-2000s to achieve a minimum of 7.5 energy efficiency stars. They’re purpose-built to be a comfortable temperature year-round, and are packed with a solar photovoltaic system, solar hot water, a live feedback display to show households their energy use, plus a range of water- and energy-efficient appliances and equipment. Combined, these systems reduce both annual and peak energy demand, and supply much of that energy at a net zero-carbon impact.

To reciprocate, we spent several weeks investigating similar examples of niche low-energy housing developments in the Midlands and the North of England. We listened to the stories of people living in low energy homes, who experience the difference on a daily basis, and from season to season. They help us look beyond the dollars saved or percentage of emissions reduced; for them the impact of low-energy homes is personal.

This research provides new insights into the relationship between people, energy technologies and low-carbon buildings. For example, one elderly householder told us that moving into a dry and warm low-energy home allowed their grandchildren to come and stay, completely changing their life, and the life of their family.

Low-energy homes create a wide range of physical and mental changes. Several households spoke about health improvements from higher indoor air quality. Even the idea of living in a healthier and more environmentally sustainable home can prompt lifestyle changes – one woman in her mid-50s told us she gave up smoking after moving into her low-energy house because she felt her behaviour should match the building’s environmental design. She also shortened the length of her showers, reduced her food wastage, and lowered her transport use by visiting the supermarket less often.

Purpose-built low-energy homes also give economic empowerment to low-income households. One household told us that savings on energy bills let them afford annual family holidays, even overseas. This economic benefit matches our findings in other Australian examples.

As researchers, we might dismiss this as a macro-economic rebound effect, voiding many of the energy and environmental benefits. But to that household the result was a closer and stronger family unit, able to make the types of choices available to others in their community. The benefits in mental and physical wellbeing are real, and more important to that family than net carbon emission reductions.

Although international policy is firmly moving towards technology-rich, low-energy homes, our research shows that not all technology is user-friendly or easy to understand. For example, some households were frustrated by not knowing if their solar hot water system was efficiently using free solar energy, or just relying on gas or electric boosting. Design improvements with better user feedback will be critically important if we are to meet people’s real needs.

The ConversationThis research highlights the importance, in the transition to low-energy and low-carbon homes, of not forgetting the people themselves. Improving real quality of life should be the central focus of carbon-reducing housing policies.

Stephen Berry, Research fellow, University of South Australia; David Michael Whaley, Research Fellow in Sustainable Energy and Electrical Engineering, University of South Australia, and Trivess Moore, Research Fellow, RMIT University

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