Buildings throughout the world are responsible for 40% of the global greenhouse gas emission and contribute about 40% of the solid waste generation globally according to Joe Van Bellegham, chief executive of Canadian company Lend Lease.
“This leads us to the astonishing statistic that buildings consume about one third of the world’s resources each year,” he said. “This sort of consumption and wasteful use of resources cannot continue indefinitely and the business community, or more specifically, property developers have to change the way they create offices, shops and apartments throughout the world,” he added.
Referring to the Dockside Green project in Victoria in British Columbia, Van Bellegham points out that this project was able to change the notion of conventional property development in many different ways.
“Essentially, in nature, nothing goes to waste. But human beings are wasteful by nature and are generating enormous amounts of waste each year and dumping this waste in major landfill sites in different locations around the world. This is clearly not a sustainable approach to life and needs to change quickly and immediately,” he added.
His approach at Dockside Green was to generate absolutely no waste at all and to achieve this was an enormous challenge for the team that built the mixed-use development on the Dockside Lands site.
It is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum status project. LEED is a green building certification system that was developed by the United States’ Green Building Council and it sets out to provide a framework for identifying and implementing practical methods of constructing, maintaining and operating buildings in such a way as to cause limited or no environmental damage.
Environmental features of the project are based on the triple-bottom-line principles of economics, natural ecology and social equity allowing the community of residents, employees and business to interact in a healthy and safe environment.
The Dockside Green development has achieved platinum status, an accolade that only four other buildings in the world have been able to achieve. Moreover, Lend Lease has committed itself to paying a penalty of $1-million for each building that does not achieve platinum status in the overall development.
Each of the buildings at Dockside Green provides what Lend Lease claims is 100% fresh air distributed through either central or individual heat recovery ventilators. The fresh air system uses heat recovery from the exhaust system and preheats incoming air to each of the buildings, saving energy and providing clean air at the same time. Throughout the development, low or no volatile organic compounds were used in paints, sealants and adhesives and no urea-formaldehyde composite wood products were used either.
All the buildings were designed to reduce energy consumption by between 45% and 55% and include such energy saving initiatives as a four-pipe fan coil system, double-glazing and exterior blinds on the west and south faces of the buildings to keep interiors cool. In fact the current estimates are that each building in the Dockside development will save almost 260 tons of greenhouse gases each year.
The development uses Energy Star efficient appliances that result in energy savings of about 47% and all offices, apartments and businesses use compact fluorescent lighting internally with LED lights in corridors and some solar lighting in landscape areas. All rooms have occupancy sensors to switch lights off and on.
Meters to monitor domestic hot and cold-water usage, heating bills and electricity consumption are included in each office, apartment or retail area and provide real-time information about energy usage. There are individual controls that allow residents to pre-programme temperature settings so they are lower when the building is unoccupied and heat up when residents are due to get home.
“The individual meters contribute to a further saving of about 20% in energy consumption,” says Van Bellegham.
Sewage from the building is treated in an on-site waste water treatment plant and this water is re-used for irrigation and toilet flushing and this results in savings of about 140-million litres of water a year. Moreover, the city does not levy a charge for sewage as the water is treated on site and these savings contribute to lower ownership costs for residents in Dockside Green.
The entire development is expected to save about 350-million litres of potable water a year through the use of high-performance water fixtures and appliances, water efficient dishwashers and washing machines and dual-flush toilets.
“The amount of water saved is equivalent to the annual water use of about 580 homes in Victoria,” says Van Bellegham.
Over and above the direct savings in energy, Van Bellegham points out that various other environmental initiatives have been introduced at Dockside Green that include the use of indigenous plants to encourage naturally-occurring species of birds and animal life to return to the area.
“Ducks appeared from nowhere at Dockside and this year we had 12 ducklings born there. Then the otters came in and ate some of the ducklings. There are thousands of naturally occurring species of fish in our dams and even the Canadian crayfish found their way into our water features and were preyed on by otters as well.
“No species were imported to the Dockside development but moved in uninvited. We have waived all levies and rentals for the otters, ducks and crayfish,” he added.
From a waste generation perspective, Van Bellegham says that the goal is to recycle or reuse about 90% of the construction waste generated on site. - Paddy Hartdegen
Readers' Comments Have a comment about this article? Email us now.
Print
