Sustaining the built environment

I’ll tell you a not-so-secret secret that I have been telling colleagues, students, industry representatives and governments for years: everything is sustainable.

Now this might seem strange to some, but it is really very simple. The term ‘sustainability’ has been so overused that its only value now lies in the base dictionary definition; the ability of something to be sustained.

From this perspective anything can be sustained, it’s just a question of: for how long, the resources required, whether these resources are available and whether we actually want to sustain it.

Owners and communities will have to decide how long individual buildings and precincts are sustained, based on their particular individual circumstances.

That being said, our current way of designing, building and operating our built environments is widely known to be highly resource intensive. We are exceeding the capacity of our natural environments to produce resources and assimilate waste under current techniques.

Further complicating the situation is our ongoing consumption of non-renewable resources (often in low value-added activities such as combustion) without determining what will be used instead once they are gone.

While switching to renewable energy and ensuring outputs are seen as resources not waste are the types of game-changing activities central to addressing this challenge, even more important is to improve the efficiency and productivity of our built environments.

In economic terms, we need to reduce our demand so that it can meet a limited but indefinitely sustained supply.

Most recently this can been seen in the push for ‘green’ buildings, precincts and cities with lower impacts on the natural environment; in the hope that performance can be improved to a point where they collectively operate within the known capacities (such as a water system’s ability to continually absorb waterborne pollution).

In time this has taken us from environmental performance being a fringe debate to a mainstream consideration, where some buildings are claiming to be ‘carbon neutral’ developments and beyond this where others have been built or are being planned to be regenerative, where benefits to the natural environment exceed any impacts.

But the wider sector is coming to realise something that facilities managers have known for decades; that while you can plan and design something to perform well, it is facilities management that is responsible for sustaining all of Australia’s built environments.

A building’s operational phase accounts for 80-90% of its total greenhouse gas emissions, with most expected to last for decades after their architects and engineers have passed.

It is those responsible for operating, managing, maintaining and securing our built environments that are the greatest determiners of whether we can lower the resource intensity of our built environments to within levels that can be indefinitely sustained.

Innovation will play a role, but we cannot rely on it. Instead, it is essential that due consideration be given to ensuring all of those working in this area have sufficient skills and knowledge to deliver the intended outcomes.

For instance, where a manager reports a higher level of energy-efficiency knowledge, a building can perform better by up to 1.3 Stars under NABERS Energy. In New South Wales this represents a saving from education alone of 39 kgCO₂e/m² and when applied to even the smallest building caught under Commercial Building Disclosure (2000 m²) this equates to 7.8 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions saved each year or around 30 cars taken off the road.

The scope for easy yet meaningful gains is significant.

So I will leave you with this. A well-designed building, if run well, will perform well. A poorly designed building, if run well, has the potential to perform well. But a well-designed building, if run poorly, makes the whole task harder for everyone.

By Matthew Trigg, National Policy Advisor with the Facility Management Association of Australia (FMA Australia). Until last year Trigg was part of the Australian Conservation Foundation’s sustainable cities team developing their inaugural Sustainable Cities Index. He has also worked as a sustainable design adviser for local government and within numerous leading architectural practices around Australia.