Urbis Think Tank
Sydney CBD property owners pledge greener city
A historic agreement was signed last week between the City of Sydney and 13 major commercial property owners in the Sydney CBD to develop collective approaches to improve energy, water and waste systems with the goal to improve environmental performance city wide.
The agreement took the form of a ‘Better Building Partnership’ MOU and was signed by AMP Capital Investors, Brookfield Office Properties Australia, Charter Hall, Colonial First State, DEXUS, GPT Group, Investa Property Group, Lend Lease, Mirvac, Stockland, Frasers Property, the University of Sydney, the University of Technology Sydney and the City of Sydney.
The spirit of the MOU is to develop a range of strategies for commercial properties across the CBD to lower their greenhouse emissions and become more sustainable. The chair of the partnership is GPT group sustainability manager Bruce Precious, who said:
“This critical mass of public and private property owners (involved in the partnership) has the capacity to guide, as well as make, the important decisions needed to reach a low carbon, sustainable city.”
Collectively, the Better Building Partnership (BBP) members own 58 per cent of the properties in the CBD so the partnership holds real promise to make a significant impact in reducing the environmental footprint of commercial buildings in the urban core. Current initiatives by BBP members include:
- Trigeneration engines that run on natural gas and produce low carbon electricity, heating and cooling for buildings
- Water recycling systems that collect and purify water from laundries and bathrooms for reuse in irrigation and flushing toilets
- Solar electric panels and solar hot water systems
- Energy efficient T5 fluorescent and LED lighting
- High performance building facades to reduce heat but allow in natural light
- Energy efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems
- Rooftop gardens
All 13 signatories of the BBP are clients of Urbis.
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