Fairfield City Council in western Sydney has proved its commitment to water-sensitive urban design by installing a Rocla ecoHarvest stormwater harvesting system in the centre of the CBD.

Australia's tree change and sea change movement has seen the resident populations of traditional holiday towns swell in recent years. This growth puts a strain on essential services like electricity to keep up with demand. Factor in the environmentally sensitive nature of these locations and the need to come up with sustainable, low carbon emission households and a developer's task can get extremely complex.

The NSW government has moved 1400 jobs to Parramatta with the official opening of Sydney Water’s headquarters in May. The building at One Smith Street, Parramatta (built and owned by Brookfield Multiplex), was designed to achieve a 5-star green rating.

In April 2009, KSB Aktiengesellschaft, Germany, booked an order for four large water pumps to be supplied to a new pumping station in Western Australia.

Sydney construction and sustainability consultancy VIM Sustainability is the Australian distributor for the Road Energy System (RES), an innovative heating/cooling system using roads as a heat source.

Each time the residents of Brisbane and its surrounding suburbs put their bins out for collection they are helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through Thiess Services’ Swanbank Waste Management Facility (SWMF) — turning everyday waste into usable green energy.

Ensuring that a cold storage or refrigerated production facility is operating at its optimum efficiency means not only will a company reduce its carbon footprint but it can also save money due to a reduction in energy usage.

ActionEco is a web forum established by Fluke Corporation which is designed to give managers a place to learn low-cost, energy-saving techniques and share their own ideas and experiences. Available on www.ActionEco.org, it is designed to help organisations find ways to reduce their carbon footprint while cutting energy costs and increasing operational efficiency.

A combined effort from a number of suppliers has resulted in the successful operation of a water reclamation scheme at Echuca, on the Murray River, north of Bendigo.

The challenge for business now is to transcend compliance obligations and move towards truly sustainable operations, taking a holistic approach to environmental, social and economic values. This has become a key competitive issue and is increasingly likely to become a differentiator between those who succeed and those who do not.

Fibre-optic technology is making it possible to monitor pipeline its entire length with thousands of monitoring points providing a near real-time picture of what’s actually happening.

As the remediation industry matures and becomes more conscious of the impact of remediation activities on the environment, the question now arises whether these technologies are sustainable remediation approaches to be considered in the future.

Australians have continued to make their mark on the international water scene as part of Singapore International Water Week, sharing local experience with nations struggling with extreme water challenges. And one message is that ‘big infrastructure’ is not always the solution.

Continued population growth, droughts and limited water storage capacity are placing ever increasing pressure on Australian water supplies. One of the responses to this pressure has been increased use of recycled water. However, increased use has to be balanced against protection of public health; the greatest risk is from enteric microorganisms.

A series of compromises by the federal government on its pre-election commitment to take strong action on climate change has led to national and peak state-based environment organisations today uniting in opposition to the proposed emissions trading legislation.