The Australian Sustainable Build Environment Council (ASBEC) has released its final Defining Zero Emission Buildings report, urging the adoption of a common language and definitions for the use in the discussion of low energy residential development.

 

Developed by the ASBEC's Zero Emissions Residential Task Group, with support from Sustainability Victoria and in conjunction with the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS (Sydney), the report seeks to clarify some of the confusion that exists around the terminology relating to low energy and zero carbon homes. 

 

Task Group Chair, Mark Allan (GBCA) said that “we are encouraged to see so much work being done in Australia around low carbon homes and this paper will serve to strengthen the discussion on how we bring these concepts into the mainstream market.”

 

”ASBEC looks forward to engaging across the sector to encourage the use of this terminology and to promote the residential sector’s transition to a low carbon future,” ASBEC President, the Hon. Tom Roper said in launching the report today.

 

The report makes the following recommendations

  • Building-incorporated services include all energy demands or sources that are part of the building fabric at the time of delivery, such as the thermal envelope (and associated heating and cooling demand), water heater, built-in cooking appliances, fixed lighting, shared infrastructure and installed renewable energy generation
  • Zero carbon buildings must meet specified standards for energy efficiency and on-site generation
  •  Compliance is based on modelling and/or monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions in kg CO2-e/m2/yr.

The full report can be found here