Sand dunes on the coast in Port Stephens, Australia.
Australia’s Green Building Council (GBCA) uses Green Star as a third party green building certification system. I was asked yesterday how the U.S. compares to Australia’s advancement in sustainable initiatives and I was pleasantly surprised that for me it was not a clear cut answer pinning the U.S. against a wall. The U.S., as one of if not the biggest contributor to global warming, can be easily criticized for not doing enough to reverse the effects of irresponsible use of products and chemicals in various industries that harm our environment, irresponsible management of water, energy and waste disposal, no federal initiatives to offset carbon emissions or national scale recycling initiatives … and the list can go on. Certainly plenty of other countries can be criticized for this too, but many around the world look to us to assess our response when predicaments, such as climate change, arise.
Just about a two hour drive from the central business district in Sydney lies the Blue Mountains, one of Australia's gorgeous works of art.
All this said Green Star was founded in 2002 which when compared to the USGBC’s LEED system (founded in 2000) is only a couple of years behind. One big disadvantage in Green Star, agreed on by those familiar with the system, is that assessing how well the buildings perform after they are certified was in the past not given enough importance. I attended an exposition on all things buildings, the Total Facilities Expo, in which one of the main focuses was on sustainability and many exhibitors were advertising building management systems and services that monitor energy use (among other things). So, the industry is moving in that direction. This is untimely and unfortunate for my research study as it makes it heaps more difficult to obtain energy efficiency performance data for case studies. The good thing for the GBCA? They are releasing a new rating system this year that will certify buildings based on their performance after a 12 month period and hopefully the results from using this tool will be made public and used to role model what smart building design can accomplish.