The Jerry Yudelson Salon

Bambini Trust, Sydney

8 May 2012

Sponsored by

Andrew Aitken executive director - Green Star, Green Building Council of Australia

Lynne Blundell associate editor, The Fifth Estate

Matthew Clark director Water and Energy Programs, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, Department of Premier and Cabinet

Richard De Dear head, architectural science, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney

Steve Hennessy director, WT Sustainability

Romilly Madew chief executive, Green Building Council of Australia

Craig Roussac general manager, Sustainability, Safety and Environment, Investa

Tina Perinotto managing editor, The Fifth Estate

Jerry Yudelson guest of honour, green building author and consultant

Guests in alphabetical order:

It started out as a simple interview with visiting US green building author and consultant Jerry Yudelson, in Australia as keynote speaker for the ARBS exhibition and conference in Melbourne.

It culminated with a “salon” dinner (Jerry’s term, but we’re sticking to it) for a handful of green property leaders at Sydney’s Bambini Trust.

The result was some wide ranging and at times deeply penetrating discussion about issues and trends confronting sustainable property worldwide, from the performance data of highly rated green building, to the political failure of governments to generate change – in the property world included. There was intense interest, questioning and appraisals on the highest rated Australian green buildings, the successes and failures of others, and every indication that this industry is hugely engaged and motivated to continue its work.

See the full report http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/archives/35126

The photos and highlights

L-R: Jerry, Matthew

L-R: Steve, Lynne, Richard

Romilly Andrew (left), Craig

Jerry

Lynne Jerry

Andrew (left), Craig Richard

Steve

Matthew Andrew (left), Craig

w

“The forgiveness factor …it’s gold. It’s a valuable asset. What it means is that people will be quite accepting and actually embrace the fluctuating environment in a green building, but if that happens in an airconditioned building, it’s a disaster.”

“In Australia we see almost a total focus on the environ-mental impact on energy: green buildings are all about energy and it’s quite difficult to lever out of that and say there are other impacts that need to be considered as well. Even to consider that water efficiency is important in the driest continent on Earth.”

“One of the issues is that people are getting fed up with the green thing. Economics is dominating. Instead of focusing on resource scarcity and pollution.

What do all green buildings have in common? They are properly thought about and properly designed and maybe we should focus on that. “

“All these issues about geopolitical events, at the end of the day with all this big picture stuff a big part of it is saying, “it’s not my fault; it’s someone else’s fault and someone has to go and fix it and we’re all actually quite wasteful.

“The whole green building thing is about being less wasteful, like Steve was saying doing the stuff we were doing before but just doing it better. So individually there is so much we can do to improve everything.”

The biggest issue is controls. Controls don’t work. We have two Leeds Platinum projects done by engineers for themselves or for their best clients that after 5-6 months are still missing the lighting controls.

In the US when the warranty period expires everyone says “good luck, god bless” and walks away.

In my mind the biggest scandal in our business is that architects and engineers don’t follow their projects. And so they don’t see how they work.”