Net zero energy building (NZEB) standards have been gaining prominence lately as the next performance target for buildings. However, despite the demonstrated benefits of such building performance across triple bottom-line concepts, Australia is yet to formulate a policy toward adopting a net zero energy building standard.
This chapter provides a review and critique of the development and current status of approaches to improve energy efficiency and broader sustainability in the Australian built environment.
Estimation of the demand of an urban precinct, related to Electricity, Transport, Waste and Water (ETWW), is a necessary step toward the delivery of quality living environments where daily activities can be conducted in a sustainable manner.
At the New South Wales State government's annual Green Globe Awards, the Sustainability Award for Innovative Projects was presented in October 2015 to three citizens' energy projects. In the Climate Change Leadership category, the Tathra Community Solar Farm was awarded the prize.
Smarter urban futures require resilient built environment in the context of climate change. This chapter demonstrates the application of satellite-based surface cover and temperature data to support planning for urban heat resilience. Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 data is used to analyse the correlation of urban surface covers to the urban heat island effect in Adelaide.
This paper explores four modelling challenges and proposes future trends for agent-based modelling of urban systems to better support planning decisions.
This study results show that the Walkability PSS could support planners in several situations including testing and comparing planning scenarios for greenfield and brownfield areas, conducting consultation and/or workshops with various stakeholders and making decisions about the provision of new infrastructure.
A review of the Australian Urban Intelligence Network (AURIN) project: the network of researchers, planners and policy-makers involved, the online workbench of data and tools, and the urban data and analytical capability it offers.
