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Lochiel Park in South Australia has demonstrated the benefits of building homes to a higher standard – a minimum 7.5-star rating in this case. Stephen Berry/UniSA

HomeBuilder misses a chance to make our homes perform better for us and the planet

Trivess Moore, RMIT University and Tony Matthews, Griffith University

There has never been a better time for public money to go into improving the performance of Australian housing. We could have cut household bills and emissions, as well as saving construction jobs.
Across our growing cities more and more buildings are going up, as are their emissions. Andy Brownbill/AAP

Buildings produce 25% of Australia’s emissions. What will it take to make them ‘green’ – and who’ll pay?

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

Australia’s commitments to cut emissions are on a collision course with urban growth. We need a much more comprehensive strategy to make the transition to a sustainable built environment.
The current social housing construction rate – barely 3,000 dwellings a year – does not even keep pace with rising need, let alone make inroads into today’s backlog. Joel Carrett/AAP

Australia needs to triple its social housing by 2036. This is the best way to do it

Julie Lawson, RMIT University; Hal Pawson, UNSW Sydney; Laurence Troy, UNSW Sydney, and Ryan van den Nouwelant, Western Sydney University

A tenfold increase in building is needed to overcome the current social housing shortfall and cover projected growth in need. But it can be done, and direct public investment is the cheapest way.
What does a green star rating – One Central Park apartments in Sydney received five stars, for instance – actually mean? AAP

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

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

Buildings are central to creating more sustainable cities, and green ratings are often used to assess how well a building measures up against this goal. But the current system has serious flaws.
An outstanding example of sustainable residential building, Breathe Architecture’s The Commons apartments in Melbourne won a 2014 National Architecture Award. Image courtesy of Australian Institute of Architects

Sustainable cities? Australia’s building and planning rules stand in the way of getting there

Andréanne Doyon, RMIT University; Joe Hurley, RMIT University; Susie Moloney, RMIT University, and Trivess Moore, RMIT University

New South Wales is the only state that has made meaningful progress on legislation and enforcement of standards capable of creating a sustainable built environment.
Soaring heating costs mean many vulnerable Australians endure cold houses and the associated risks to their health. Paul Vasarhelyi from www.shutterstock.com

Forget heatwaves, our cold houses are much more likely to kill us

Lyrian Daniel, University of Adelaide and Emma Baker, University of Adelaide

The idea of a hot and sunny land is so baked into our thinking about Australia that we’ve failed to design and build houses that protect us from the cold.

Related Topics

  1. Building code
  2. Cities
  3. Cities & Policy
  4. Construction
  5. Energy efficiency
  6. home building
  7. Housing
  8. Social housing
  9. Sustainable design
  10. Sustainable living

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