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What is energy efficiency and how is it measured?

Energy efficiency is a general industrial and economic value which, given accurate pricing, translates into better, more affordable and profitable outcomes. Today, it is regarded as one of two pillars in the fight against global warming and fossil energy security risks: the rapid introduction of renewable energy is the other. Greater energy efficiency is defined in popular economic terms as a way of achieving a given result while using less energy. In engineering and in physics, it is expressed as a ratio of input to output. While greater efficiency is always a benefit, due to the fact that most greenhouse gas emissions are fossil-fuel derived, it is most useful to measure it in the amount of fossil-fuel conserved, not energy saved per se. As a ratio used in the building sector, it is best expressed as equivalent units of coal (or oil) per square metre, for example (or in terms of CO₂ or CO₂-equivalent emissions, although the latter method is less direct and can be prone to errors). Energy conservation is a more general term, expressing all means of expending and using less energy.

Energy efficiency is only one side of the coin. Given the unfolding, combined climate and energy crises, energy efficiency is best seen in any new development as an essential means of reducing the cost of introducing renewable energy systems. Applied in itself, it risks perpetuating the fossil fuel development paradigm, increasingly outmoded, costly and risky. 

Because energy is needed for everything we plan, build and do, it very much matters how efficient we are in dealing with it. Commercial energy is not available for free - and because most of it is still coal, petroleum and natural gas derived, its fuel costs will inevitably go up, and steeply so. Energy efficiency measures, while not always cost-neutral in design or hardware requirements, reduce our dependence on these fossil fuels - and it dramatically lowers the entrance costs when we shift to solar or other renewable energy systems. Renewable energy systems are infinitely superior to fossil systems because they are in comparative terms intrinsically more 'efficient', too: the source cost is nil, broadly speaking.

There are different scales and types of applications at which efficiency becomes a tangible factor in development performance.

• Urban efficiency
• Neighbourhood efficiency
• Building efficiency
• Systems efficiency
• Community efficiency.

Important related aspects: efficiency in context. Besides such inherent efficiency characteristics of the design and performance of the development as whole and in all of its parts, there are also active, efficiency enhancing systems that can be deployed, such as heat pumps operating in sewage, other effluent or waste heat streams - such as those carried by air ducts or water pipes. Such systems are covered elsewhere. Also covered elsewhere is the aspect of facility-embodied energy - how little or how much energy - especially fossil energy - for example, a building contains in the materials it is made of, or the manner in which it is constructed determines very much its energy efficiency profile as well.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that on a household basis 60-70% of energy is used for goods and services (ACF 2008), only the rest is direct energy use within the home.

Urban efficiency

At the urban or larger development scale it can be found in reliance on higher density, efficient public and intelligent private transport systems and arrangements, on walking and bicycling. It can be increased through more integrated, diverse and dense layout patterns. A high degree of integration and connectivity is assumed to also lead to higher quality of life, local safety, better amenity, and local employment - nurturing better communities and in turn, enhancing locally dependent activities. This is widely believed to enhance energy efficiency. However, while this hypothesis is quantitatively tested in various studies relating to various modes of transport (Kenworthy 2008) its logic in areas such as neighbourhood layout and design can be followed in the application of common sense. See also below, Community efficiency.

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Neighbourhood efficiency

Well-designed streets and intelligent subdivision plans improve efficiency, not only by deepening connectivity, but also by enhancing thermal performance, in ensuring good solar orientation, affording protection from adverse winds, or by facilitating cooling breezes in the summer, thereby reducing air-conditioning load or other heat island difficulties (Ichinose et al, 2008). Successful development and maintenance of social ties through good design, density and pedestrian safety can also assist in implementing programs designed to enhance neighbourhood efficiency in community behaviour terms. See also below, Community efficiency.

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Building efficiency

It is critical that the very logic of design and layout, the intelligent use of daylight, materials selection, and insulation and glazing choices are developed with energy efficiency in mind. In Australia, efficient bioclimatic design - design using local climatic considerations and devising high levels of internal micro-climatic conditioning through air flow, solar exposure and the allocating of planted areas - can even make heating or cooling unnecessary. Indeed, some of Australia's earliest settlements featured such responsive and efficient regional designs, yet today, thanks to a century-old love affair with coal-generated electricity, suburbs are among the least efficient and most wasteful in energy use terms anywhere. Air conditioning loads alone lead world worst-practice. Several statutory and controls initiatives, both voluntary and mandatory, have emerged in recent years that have begun to guide industry and community onto more efficient paths: the Building Sustainability Index (BASIX) applied in New South Wales is one such example (Government of NSW 2008).

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Systems efficiency

Modern households are brimming with motorised and thermal equipment for work, living and leisure. Some of these are installed as part of the building, and some are introduced by the buyers and other users, but it is important to consider that good 'passive' design can avoid the need for augmenting equipment such as lights, fans and conditioners- but that the selection of high-performance, better-rated household machinery, computing equipment and peripherals, ovens, refrigerators, air conditioners, lighting systems and even 'intelligent' building efficiency control methods that ensure that the overall building or development operates at optimum efficiency - can not only drastically lower running costs but also extend the life of both equipment and building by lowering wear and tear. And as with buildings, product longevity and durability, and concern for extended and cradle-to-cradle (recyclable - McDonough and Braungart 2002/2008), lifecycle horizons, can be an effective means of achieving efficiency. Each high-performance building can come with a user's manual to ensure optimized use.

Read about Smart Metering as a way for households to measure and manage energy use.

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Community efficiency

And finally, at the user level, it is important to remember that efficiency - a feature of any good design - is also a social construct: the use patterns, maintenance behaviour and life style of the user community is part of the overall efficiency profile of a development. It is not widely appreciated that this component makes up the lion's share of total household energy consumption. The total energy intensity of an area in household consumption terms is composed 60-70% of embodied consumption energy - in the food, clothing, alcohol and other goods purchased. Services consumed also make up a large component of energy used. Finally, inner-city and more affluent neighbourhoods can be twice as energy intensive as a suburban area within the same city. This demonstrates that flawed lifestyle choices can quickly neutralise any or all of the savings made in transport and other efficiency gains achieved by making an inner-city development a living choice. By the same token, public policies towards urban consolidation and central-area development can take advantage of greater transport energy efficiencies and can actually increase overall energy consumption levels, unless dramatic shifts in lifestyle choices are realised such as the production, distribution and consumption of food. The same principle holds in water consumption, and in the wider ecological footprint of an area. (ACF 2008)

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Case Study – The New Rouse Hill

1. Context elements of The New Rouse Hill
   • Large development scale - T-way, rail etc, density around town centre, school nearby, walk and cycleway through open space
   • Neighbourhood scale - Rouse Hill - pedestrian friendly town centre, bicycle lock up, street trees, orientation allow for solar design, design incorporates breezeways
   • Building scale - solar orientation and natural light, thermal mass and materials, insulation, glazing, zoning, design layout, shading
   • Appliances - appropriately sized systems and high performance energy and water ratings, product longevity and durability and recyclability, embodied energy, gas boosted solar hot water.
      
2. Specifically focusing on the residential building scale

The New Rouse Hill is a joint venture development between Lend Lease and The GPT Group in partnership with the NSW Department of Planning and Landcom.

The New Rouse Hill residential display village contains an ESD home, The Aquarius (design and constructed by Cosmopolitan Homes), which showcases passive solar, energy and water efficient design principles. All materials used in construction were selected using a Life Cycle Assessment to develop a list of preferred environmentally sustainable building materials. This process also involved educating builders and providing them with a list of sources and local suppliers of preferred materials.

Some of the innovative features of the Aquarius include:

• Living rooms with north and east facing orientation
• Eaves, pergola and external fixed louvres for shading
• External walls coated with a radiant heat reduction paint
• Improved insulation using batts, AirCell insulation and foil backed sarking
• Recycled aluminium framed windows with Low E performance glass to reduce heat transfer
• Operable window louvres to encourage natural airflow and cross ventilation
• High void area in dining room to allow heat to rise through the home and exit through the high void louvres during hot weather.
• Brick cavity walls and solid masonry, double-storey internal wall to regulate inside temperature through thermal mass
• Reversible ceiling fans in all bedrooms and living rooms
• Energy efficient compact fluorescent lights with movement sensors which operate only when the room in occupied
• Solar gas booster hot water system
• Edible vegetable and herb garden and composting bin and enclosure
• Green concrete on-ground slab and driveway which contains 60% recycled content.

The home achieved BASIX scores of 56 and 53 for energy and water, which exceeds BASIX requirements by 40% and 33% respectively.

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Case Study – The Walking School Bus

An outstanding example of community engagement to deliver energy conservation and triple bottom line sustainability.

The walking school bus (WSB) is a group of primary school children who walk to and from school along a safe and enjoyable route(s), under the direct supervision of parent ‘drivers’/supervisors.

Safety training of both parents and children is absolutely essential before either can become part of the WSB. The ratio of children to parent drivers is carefully determined by the prevailing traffic conditions and personal safety issues and is established by bringing together the wisdom of the parents and the expertise and knowledge of the school community, local council, police and others.

An evaluation of the first NSW Government-supported walking bus programs in NSW (at Hurstville South and Carlton South Public Schools) revealed many benefits including:

• Parents and children agreed they valuethe opportunity to build new and strengthen existing friendships most of all.
• Prior to joining the WSB, 95% of WSB children travelled predominantly by car to school. The reduction in cars on the road and the size of the swarm of cars at the school gate is an obvious benefit of this.
• Parents list ‘safety’ and ‘health’ as two further benefits. Parents whose work commitments forced them to leave young children walking alone to school were particularly appreciative of the WSB.
• The police noted that prior to joining the WSB, children were essentially car dependent and had poor road safety skills. Police welcomed the opportunity to teach road safety at a practical level.
• The pilot program was entirely dependent on parents’ volunteer efforts. Parents valued time saved on the days when they were not rostered on to ‘drive’ a WSB, but were reassured that their children were safely under the supervision of other parents who had received the safety training program.(Evaluated by The People for Places and Spaces)

The WSB provided an excellent example of a joint state and local government community-based initiative, which works to empower local communities to deliver direct social and environmental sustainability benefits to participating schools, communities and beyond.

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Key Issues

Benefits

Why worry about energy efficiency? Primarily, because it is a very good measure of project performance and overall design quality. The Australian building and development industry generally has embraced the idea that excellence in performance is an important intrinsic value and efficiency has become synonymous for quality and performance broadly. Also, in a pragmatic sense, it increasingly forms part of hard statutory building and development requirements. But beyond the typically basic requirements, it also almost invariably forms part of the aspirations and goals enshrined in most current development control instruments. Being able to demonstrate a high level of efficiency can reduce development approval times. Most importantly, building-level energy efficiency reduces operating costs and equipment requirements for purchasers and their tenants and can become a highly attractive market feature and selling point.

Impacts of various design factors on a typical brick veneer home computer modelled to develop Victoria's First Rate energy rating software. Diagram from Energy Smart Housing Manual, page 6 (Sustainability Victoria 2008).

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Risks

There is a certain risk of getting lost in the world of third-party building energy performance contracting when the reward structure has not been clearly defined (Bleyl-Androschin and Schinnerl 2008). In Australia the framework for such contracting is not yet supported by legislation, although it is well accepted in the context of commercial building. There are moves to establish BASIX as a national standard, and even greater efficiency standards may be introduced in the Building Control of Australia, Section J (BCA 2008). Today, BCA Section J, NatHERS and AGBR rating and reporting services are provided reliably by a number of companies, but to secure a reliable and efficient yet creative and cost-conscious advisory services can be more challenging. It is always worth the extra effort in identifying the best candidate for this contribution as an integrated component of the design services commissioned.

Another risk can arise from adopting commercial, market-recognised rating tools that are too restrictive to design innovation, too narrow in their assessment frameworks, or too costly in relation to the overall construction scale and budget.

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Savings

A development, project or product that delivers a high degree of performance across a wide range of efficiency features, from urban to community efficiency, can result in massive savings in time, money, relationships, health risks, or psychological stress avoided. The kind of savings made depend on the class or category and level of efficiency performance achieved. Efficiency performance delivered through daylight performance produces constant gains over worse performing buildings, in lighting costs avoided, or reduced photovoltaic hardware requirement for solar electricity generation. Such savings - even though they may be realised largely by purchasers and lease holders - can be captured by investors and developers through intelligent marketing, sales agreements and lease arrangements.

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Costs

On an overall, societal scale, the cost of efficiency is minuscule when compared with the savings that can be realised. Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), points out that 'negawatts' (energy expenditure avoided) can be achieved at one-eighth (12.5%) of the cost of generating coal fired power, not counting the actual cost of power plants themselves. This means that, according to Lovins, efficiency gains alone can ensure that no new fossil nor nuclear power plants would be needed - in the United States - for generations to come. Efficiency gains are also acknowledged to be achievable easily and cheaply in Australia, and tremendous gains can still be made. A 2006 study by the AGL and World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) showed that 40% efficiency emissions reductions can be achieved in Australia by 2030 at a mere 43 cents per household a week (AGL).

A similar expense to gains ratio is found at the development project scale - but here the challenge is that in conventional sales and tenancy arrangements the benefits are typically realised by parties other than the original development investor - hence the lingering temptation to cut costs and forego opportunities to achieve longer-term project and product longevity, durability and, hence, gain through operating costs saved. However, better consumer awareness, marketing strategies, and sales and tenancy contracts are useful in sharing both tangible (financial, health) and intangible (psychological, emotional) efficiency benefits downstream, or, put differently, account for downstream gains in the sales or lease price achieved.

In neighbourhood building and product design, by far the largest gains in energy efficiency, as much as 60-80%, can be achieved at no material or systems cost at all, by simply applying better design and greater knowledge, and common sense, in the design process. Given the marginal role design plays as a cost item, any added input and attention required at this stage will be negligible.

If commercial or market recognition in rating systems is desired these can be quite expensive, especially for smaller developments, particularly if they are based on fixed-fee arrangements, as opposed to being free of charge, or determined in relation to the construction budget.

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Barriers

Barriers can be project internal, such as lack of understanding, time and cost pressures; and project external, such as a lack of communication with investors or clients. Such barriers are not difficult to overcome in the domain of energy efficiency and real gains can be made. Another barrier can be the cost of ratings and certification, as mentioned above under costs and risks. However, some of these can be obtained free of charge (see below, Benchmarks), or can be assembled by a savvy developer from a basket of available tools, standards and performance measures, tailored to each project and clientele.

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Benchmarks

There are numerous benchmarks available, both as performance standards and as rating tools. The following is, in part built around excerpts from The Renewable City (Droege 2006). In Australia, state-based rating tools, such as BASIX, the NSW Government's Building Sustainability Index are the most readily and affordable systems available to small and medium size, suburban subdivision developments.

BASIX is also applicable to multi-unit developments, and for this category, the Green Building Council's rating scheme, Green Star, based on the US LEED system, will also be available soon. As an example of top-level, performance, see the Dockside Green development in Vancouver (Windmill 2008). However, in order to provide a range of perspectives and approaches, other UK and US based approaches are discussed here. The choice is the developer's, unless government requirements exist, as in New South Wales where BASIX is the standard framework, or specific rating tools are desired for marketing or recognition purposes (see also 'Barriers' and 'Risks').

'BASIX, the Building Sustainability Index, has been introduced in Australia within the greater Sydney area and across the larger New South Wales state planning system. The web-based self-rating tool is focused on residential building only at this time. It serves as a design, planning and assessment tool, measuring the potential performance of proposed residential dwellings against energy performance, thermal comfort and water consumption. BASIX helps enforce the state government's policy targets of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as well as water use, likely to shift over time. For new construction permits emission performance is currently limited to 40% of those of average homes or apartment buildings implemented before the legislation. To be granted development approval, each development application must carry a BASIX certificate. Certificates are issued once a BASIX assessment has been satisfactorily completed on-line, using either the single dwelling or multi-unit tool. Building applicants - architects, builders, owners, developers - complete the assessment themselves; plug-in software and specialised assessment services can be consulted in the rating process …

Green Star is an evolving \building rating tool made available by the Australian Green Building Council. It is presently available only for office buildings, and as pilots for education, heathtcare facilities, shopping centres, multi-unit residential and mixed-use developments, not for subdivisions or terrace-house developments. It is largely also not useful for post-occupancy evaluations, at this time.

Green Star is based on LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - Green Building Rating System®, advanced by the United States Green Building Council … The ambition driving LEED was to establish a commercially viable, common standard of assessment; to promote integrated building design practice; reward competition for environmental leadership in the building industry; raise public and client awareness of so-called green building benefits; and ultimately, help transform the building market. LEED helps establish a comprehensive framework for site planning, water and energy efficiency, renewable energy applications, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. LEED promotes improved building practice through a system of project certification, professional accreditation, training and practical resources. This is not yet a system for rating embodied energy, nor for verifying compliance with commitments made or standards established.

LEED standards are either already available or under development for

1. new commercial construction and major renovation projects - LEED-NC;
2. existing building operations - LEED-EB;
3. commercial interiors - LEED-CI;
4. core and shell projects - LEED-CS - and
5. individual homes, LEED-H.

A tool for rating urban areas, ie Neighbourhood Development (LEED-ND) has been advanced since 2004, in a joint effort with two United States advocacy organizations, the Congress for a New Urbanism (CNU) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). See also (Pyke, Thompson et al 2007)

The Green Building Council is also represented in Canada and Australia, and the recent establishment of a World Green Building Council has also taken place. As referred to above, LEED has been adapted as the Green Star rating tool in Australia.

NABERS, the National Australian Built Environment Rating System, is one of the most comprehensive post-construction rating tools on the market or under development today - it is a performance based rating tool for existing buildings. Designed for assessing existing buildings, not for evaluating designs under development, NABERS has been developed for the rating of residential and commercial office buildings by tracking the impacts they have on the environment, both directly and indirectly. The approach is simple but sophisticated: the tool helps examine buildings in the resource and waste stream they foster or help stem; and the energy they cause to be used, conserved or permit to be generated, to support light, heating, cooling and ventilation. It rates the way in which water is managed and used for washing, drinking and air conditioning - and how rain and storm water is handled. Local biodiversity impacts are assessed as well …'

Examples from other countries:

'BREEAM is the UK's Environmental Assessment Method that has been developed, promoted and applied for a over a decade by Building Research and Consultancy (BRE) … Structures are rated in design or their final built reality, and presented in ways that are easily comprehended and applied by building developers and managers. Buildings can be evaluated in eight dimensions, in terms of :

1. management: overall policy, site management and procedures;
2. operational energy use and greenhouse performance, disregarding embodied energy;
3. indoor and external dimensions of health and well-being;
4. air and water pollution impacts;
5. transport: defined as location-specific, transport-related greenhouse gas emissions;
6. land use relevance: a building’s location in a greenfields versus, preferably, a brownfields site;
7. ecological conservation and regeneration relevance;
8. environmental impacts of building materials, including life-cycle considerations; and
9. water consumption and efficiency ...'

'BREEAM is used to assess and rate offices, homes, industrial development, retail space, schools, and other types of structures. The tool is promoted for marketing as well as design purposes. It suggests that all involved in the development process - owners, developers, agencies, designers, managers and building researchers apply it to specify the sustainability performance of buildings in a market relevant way. Designers deploy BREEAM to enhance their understanding and ability to create better buildings. Building managers apply it to monitor facility portfolios and devise management, maintenance and adjustment programs. Real estate sales professionals incorporate BREEAM ratings to brand buildings and developments in their promotional campaigns …'

'Energy Star is a United States government-sponsored public interest program reinforcing good practice by labelling and rewarding high levels of energy efficiency, and the effectiveness of renewable energy installations. It provides a number of useful software tools and other resources on-line and free of charge … '

'The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), in partnership with the Department of Energy (US DOE), has long rewarded good energy performance across a range of products and services, from refrigerators to buildings…'

'The Energy Star program features a set of software tools available to owners and operators of a range of building types wishing to monitor and manage the energy performance of their assets. One of these is Portfolio Manager, designed for commercial asset managers to boost their energy-sensitive decision-making capability. It rates buildings on a 1-100 scale in relation to a nationwide reference set of comparable buildings, applying US EPA’s national energy performance rating system. Scores above 75 qualify for the Energy Star label. Annual weather variability, geographic location, facility scale and type from offices to warehouses, as well as a set of operational aspects are considered. Energy consumption, intensity and overall rating can be viewed at the same time; and access to the system can be networked throughout an organisation. Important portfolio and individual asset management decisions can flow from such insight. A sub-tool, Target Finder, is also accessible free of charge and usable via the Internet. It assists architects, engineers and other building designers in creating power targets and budgets. Another tool, the Delta Score Estimator, helps relate energy savings directly to the energy performance rating system …'

'The International Energy Agency’s Committee on Energy Research and Technology (IEA CERT), through its Renewable Energy Working Party, operates a cooperative research program specifically focused on lifecycle analysis tools for buildings ….'
 

 

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Development phase actions

Feasibility

The design of the development phases themselves require careful planning, in order for efficiency to become a paramount aim and outcome. All phases are involved - and indeed, the development process itself can be structured in more efficient ways. For example, by introducing design options into the feasibility stages of the project, or by adopting certain alliancing arrangements, or by working with local government groups who have adopted Solar City® or similar principles, the development stages could be streamlined. Also, it is always a good idea to devise the marketing strategy for projects from the outset, and allow each stage to inform and become an integral part of the final product as a dynamic community: advertising itself and other projects by the developer involved.

Least-cost planning makes sense only in whole-of-lifecycle accounting, where future costs and gains can be discounted and expressed as current assets. Given appropriate marketing, sales and lease documentation and agreements this then can be translated into legal frameworks designed to realise these future assets (and liabilities) as present values, boosting returns and enhacing feasibility projections. This approach, if adequately communicated, can also help leverage better loan arrangements at better rates, attract public subsidies and incentives, and structure developments as 'emissions-trade ready' products for a time when development-based carbon accounting and crediting frameworks may become available.

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Planning

To successfully drive planning, design and delivery it is important to define a set of

1. aims;
2. strategies to achieve these aims;
3. benchmarks to reach;
4. a risk/reward calculation;
5. an integrated market positioning and branding concept associated with energy efficiency; and
6. ways of measuring success tangibly after implementation - means by which one can judge success or failure at a later date, to improve the project at hand and to learn for other developments.

Marketing and market response
A good marketing strategy consists of more than an understanding of markets and salesmanship. It is an integrated approach to shaping design, plans, product in the context of mood, audience and pitch of everything the development represents, and everything that is communicated about this. Expressions like 'high efficiency' or much worse, 'low-energy', neither convince nor excite - 'high performance' is a better way of representing what a company sells. In this context, it is important that a developer's sales force understands and communicates the virtues of a project.

At the same, it is of paramount importance that the buyers, tenants and other users are engaged in the process and conceptualisation of a development. The vast majority of energy is expended in the food we buy, clothes we acquire and services we consume.

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Design

'Design' is a very broad catch-all phrase for a wide range of activities:

• master layout
• subdivision structuring
• traffic planning and engineering
• infrastructure planning
• landscape design
• micro-climate optimisation
• typology development and selection
• streetscape and public space design
• building design
• material selection
• specification of construction elements and details
• building systems, including heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) if needed
• interior design and fit-out
• selection of lighting fixtures, of kitchen and bathroom/laundry appliances

Each 'design' phase or element is significantly efficiency sensitive. And at each design phase efficiency (or inefficiency) conditions and requirements are set for the next stage. And if each stage and set of assumptions is taken on its own the overall result is likely to be far less efficient than if a whole-of-project, comprehensive design approach is adopted, seeking improvements across the entire spectrum of decisions

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Construction

The management and conduct of construction planning, excavation, fill, demolition, reuse, structural construction, waste management - the section of work procedures and machinery; decisions over pre-cast or pre-assembly versus on-site assembly - each step in the process, each decisions here, too, is supremely energy sensitive, and responsive to optimisation and demand reduction.

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Lot Creation

This applies to old-style subdivision planning only, where everything after lot subdivision is relegated to owners and builders, or both. At best, design, exterior material, style, garden or streetscape guidelines are being issued. By the same token, energy efficiency standards can be set, and performance guidelines issued. This can involve induction and/or training sessions, evaluation services and - last not least - engagement of lifestyle issues and user behaviour, expectations, fit and response.

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Completion

The development's completion is really only the beginning of its life. The manner in which it is used, how the families, individuals and communities perform in their own energy-saving ways ultimately determines how successful the development will be. At the very least, as its very foundation, a good development provides a tool, a good foundation for a community being able to behave well in their attempts to reduce their ecological footprint.

Finally, no development is ever 'completed' - the day its owners and residents move in is the day it is being tested, maintained, repaired - and usually updated and adapted. It is also the day on which the benefits, successes and failures of energy efficiency measures begin to become available. During the life of any projects a wealth of information becomes available, to those who care to find out, and use this information to improve future practice, and even the original development itself. This process is called Post-occupancy Evaluation (POE) and it is best linked firmly to the project's initial aims and performance measures. If a POE is programmed into the development's operating budget, and reflected in the developer's corporate learning program it can become an invaluable source for gaining experience and future successes.

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AGBR. 2008. Australian Greenhouse Building Rating scheme. http://www.abgr.com.au/

ACF - Australian Conservation Foundation. 2008. ACF Consumption Atlas. http://www.acfonline.org.au/consumptionatlas/

Bleyl-Androschin, J W and Daniel Schinnerl. 2008. ''Energy-Contracting' to Achieve Energy Efficiency and Renewables using Comprehensive Refurbishment of Buildings as an Example.' In: Droege, P. 2008. Ed. Urban Energy Transition: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Power.' Pages 387-408

Droege, P. The renewable city - comprehensive guide to an urban revolution. Wiley.

Government of NSW, 2008. Building Sustainability Index. http://www.basix.nsw.gov.au/

Hegger, M et a. 2006. Construction Material Handbook. Birkhäuser

Ichinose, T et al. 2008. 'Counteracting Urban Heat Islands in Japan.' In:
Droege, P. 2008. Ed. Urban Energy Transition: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Power.' Pages 365-380

Kenworthy, J.R. 2008. Energy Use and CO 2 Production in the Urban

Passenger Transport Systems of 84 International Cities: Findings and Policy Implications.' In: Droege, P. 2008. Ed. Urban Energy Transition: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Power.' Pages 211-238

Lenzen, M et al 2008. 'Direct versus Embodied Energy - the Need for Urban Lifestyle Transitions.' In: Droege, P. 2008. Ed. Urban Energy Transition: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Power.' Pages 91-120

Pyke, C. R., Thomas Johnson et al. 2007. Adapting to climate change through neighborhood design. CTG Energetics. US Environmental Protection Agency. Criterion Planners&Engineers.

McDonough, W. and Michael Braungart. 2002. Cradle to cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things. Northpoint Press. See also 2008. http://www.mcdonough.com and http://www.mbdc.com

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). 2008. http://www.rmi.org

Sustainability Victoria. 2008. Energy Smart Housing Manual. http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/www/html/1641-energy-smart-housing-manual.asp

Windmill Developments. 2008. Dockside Green. http://docksidegreen.com/images/stories/sustainability/overview/greeninitiatives.pdf