Home | Contact | Register | Login
Find eco products and services
View eco friendly homes or list your own eco house
Information on sustainable living
Community chat
Buy eco products

Search Eco Articles


 (Optional)

Category


Location

Follow CarlinArcher on Twitter

Zero emissions homes within reach

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
In the wake of one of the nation’s warmest and driest winters on record, environment groups today called for new building standards to reduce emissions and water use, and to help Australia’s homes and families cope with future temperature and price shocks.

The call coincides with the release of a new report today, which shows that with the right government support and with efforts to fast-track stronger environmental building standards, Australian homes and neighbourhoods could be emissions free and water efficient by 2020.

The report, Towards climate safe homes: The case for zero emissions and water saving homes and neighbourhoods, was prepared by Environment Victoria in partnership with the Alternative Technology Association (ATA), Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), Friends of the Earth (FoE) and the Moreland Energy Foundation (MEFL).

Environment Victoria’s Campaigns Director Mark Wakeham said the Australian governments had a unique opportunity to reduce emissions and help climate-proof our homes.

“At the moment our inefficient homes are part of the climate change problem,” he said.

“However, the report shows that emissions from the average home can be reduced by more than 75 per cent with energy efficient design and appliances, while the rest of the home’s energy needs can be supplied by renewable energy. This means our houses can be effectively emissions free and part of the climate change solution.

“The report also advocates for a 40 per cent water savings target to be applied to new homes to reduce our dependence on increasingly unreliable water supplies.”

ACF’s Monica Richter said the Federal Government had a golden opportunity to set Australia on the path to zero emission homes by 2020.

“The government has made a good start with its national strategy on energy efficiency, but more needs to be done,” she said.

“We would like to see 7 or 8-star standards introduced in the next 12 months and a stronger commitment to retrofitting existing houses to help low income and vulnerable Australians adapt to the impacts of climate change.”

ATA’s Ian Porter said climate proofing Australia’s homes was not an optional extra but essential.
“Australians recognise that we need to change our homes and many have already shown that sustainability can be achieved with environmental and financial benefits,” he said.

“It is time Governments recognised this and implemented systems to support households to reduce their carbon footprint and save on energy and water bills.”

The release of the report signals the beginning of a new national campaign calling on governments Australia wide to strengthen building standards for new homes, provide green makeovers for our existing houses and set zero emissions and water efficiency standards for new homes and neighbourhoods over the next decade.
 
 

Your comments:

by Anonymous 23 Sep 09, 6 replies : Last Post Sort by:
If you would like to receive email alerts when a reply is posted to this forum thread check this check box

Author Post
Anonymous
3184 posts
Zero emissions homes within reach 
Posted 23 Sep 09 12:28 PM
Governments will do as little as possible, whilst pandering to big business interests. The current NZ National govt case in point.
sceptics
294 posts
Re: Zero emissions homes within reach 
Posted 23 Sep 09 2:54 PM
Hello anon,
I was highly amused to read this latest ‘report’ and pick out the ‘rubbish’ claim as follows:

So Australia had a warm winter last year – so what, it will be colder next year, or the year after and does not ‘prove’ we have any global warming.

Just what is the definition of an ‘emissions free’ house, the occupants don’t eat beans?

Define the utterly stupid statement: “a climate free home”. I await your answer.

The authors cannot tell the difference between a polluting gas and CO2 and think they are the same – they are scientifically NOT.

The authors think reducing CO2 makes us energy efficient – exactly how?

They claim the building Standards must change to take into effect the ‘carbon’ content of every building component – a shocking expensive exercise in futile ’navel gazing’.

And “reduce the household ‘carbon’ content”?
Easy - just remove all the occupants who are composed of 18.5% carbon and who continuously breathe out carbon dioxide.
Hey! why not euthanize the population or more beneficially, the author’s of this report: that will solve their imagined ‘problem’!

The only statement of any merit,
“advocates for a 40 per cent water savings target to be applied to new homes to reduce our dependence on increasingly unreliable water supplies.”

This acknowledges the Australians have made a proper botch up of the Murray Darling catchment, river, aquifers and their water pipe line supplies.

Rex

Anonymous
3184 posts
Re: Zero emissions homes within reach 
Posted 23 Sep 09 3:14 PM
Here is a quote "The Rudd Government has announced new support for dairy farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin to help them deal with the effects of falling milk prices, the recent heat wave and drought."

There are some real dumb idiots out there that expect to run water hogging dairy units in areas subject to a history of drought. NZ South Island dairy case in point, 1000 liters water used to create 1L of milk. This is not a long term business and should not be allowed to fail.
Anonymous
3184 posts
Re: Zero emissions homes within reach 
Posted 23 Sep 09 3:15 PM
oops should be allowed to fail.
ingoratsdorf
78 posts
Re: Zero emissions homes within reach 
Posted 23 Sep 09 3:56 PM
Yes, another "report" full of artificial new meaning ness word creations like "climate-safe", "climate-proof", "emission-free", "zero-emission", ....
And of course the fact that we need more reports, more debates, more strategies, more standards and more importantly more campaigns.
People, we know all that stuff at least since the 70's when the minority of people talking and writing about it were considered to be moonshine-dancing, tree-hugging, green idiots.
We must have had millions of reports and campaigns since and our energy use and CO2 emissions went up since.
Alexander Greig once called it "death by power point".
It's great that BRANZ spend some million dollars on the HEAP report so we now know where our energy goes to. Maybe we should have invested the money rather in some solar hot water systems to reduce our national energy use rather than tracking it.
I am getting a bit tired of meaningless reports everybody know about anyway.

Regards,
Ingo
Anonymous
3184 posts
Re: Zero emissions homes within reach 
Posted 24 Sep 09 7:38 PM
Well politicians and govt bodies just love think tanks and reports, makes them look like they are doing something, when in reality they haven't a clue and don't want to make a meaningful decision that would rock their public opinion.

Mike
Anonymous
3184 posts
Re: Zero emissions homes within reach 
Posted 24 Sep 09 9:14 PM
It will remain theory and more empty reports will come until

-Those who currently control the building industry are long gone and the filth is cleaned upbvvvvvvvvvvvcxzdsf
-Once most of the current builders and architects are retired or changed their career.
-The builders and architects are trained properly
-BRANZ is a remote memory.
-The aluminium connection lost their overwelming power
-we have a 21st century building code applied by all councils the same way
 

7 results found