Sustainable Built Environments
- housing, commercial, local government, materials and indoor environment quality
The Sustainable Built Environment Programme aims to reduce the environmental impacts of the built environment through development of tools, strategies, advisory services and professional development courses. It addresses a range of environmental issues from energy efficiency and water conservation through to environmentally preferable materials and waste avoidance during construction.
We have two key projects driving the current research 'Environmental Assessment Tools for the Building and Construction Sector' and the 'EcoHome project for sustainable housing development'. The first, aims to promote and facilitate the use of LCA in the building and construction sectors through a series of detailed case studies, review of available tools and the development of a new data collection framework. The second, to develop tools and guidelines based on social, technological and design research for environmentally responsible housing development.
A new program has recently been developed to support practitioners in local government to integrate sustainability criteria in their building and construction projects. This includes a flexible advisory service adapted to the needs of each council, development of practical guidelines and case studies, and short courses on sustainable building design for local government.
Our Sustainable Buildings Programme delivers:
- practical on the ground solutions
- transfer of knowledge
- reliable, well researched tools
- a platform from which to move to a more sustainable built environment through collaboration with industry, designers, manufacturers, regulators and developers.
For more information about our Sustainable Built Environment Program, contact: Dr Usha Iyer-Raniga, Manager, ph +61 3 9925 9066, email usha.iyer-raniga@rmit.edu.au