Think Brick Sustainability Blog

Climate change is a problem. The Australian and global economies depend on predictable weather patterns to maintain our health, safety and prosperity.

Climate change has been exacerbated by a poorly designed built environment. Where once solar passive design was used to keep a house cool in summer and warm in winter, today, we rely on artificial heating and cooling to maintain comfortable temperatures inside our homes. The result has been increased demand for energy and an increase in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Think Brick Australia has researched energy efficiency in Australian homes for the past six years and believes more can be done to reduce these emissions. Market and legislative failures have increased the inefficiency of Australian homes by incorrectly guiding building material choice.

Governments must use legislation to correct these. Specifically it needs to:

• remove R-value requirements for walling systems from the Building Code of Australia (Table 3.12.1.3, Vol 2, pp 512-514) and replace them with a metric that incorporates both thermal resistance and mass
• introduce life-cycle ratings for all building materials based on their ability to reduce energy demand for homes.

Think Brick Australia is concerned that implementing an emissions trading scheme without these two policy changes risks increasing the energy required to heat and cool Australian homes. Market responses to existing and proposed legislation is the development and use of least-cost building materials and methods which research shows increases energy consumption over the building’s life cycle.
The brick industry is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the impact of building materials in the built environment.

Over the past six years the brick industry has invested in:

• full scale testing to improve the energy-efficiency of Australian housing
• updating solar passive climate design guides for architects and building designers to make designing energy efficient homes easier; and
• developing new energy efficiency modelling techniques to assist planners and builders.

The research is supported by an extensive communications campaign – now in its third year – that delivers the outcomes of the research to all practitioners in the industry including developers, builders, urban designers, Local Council planners, architects and homeowners.

The brick industry is also committed to reducing the carbon impact of brick manufacturing and for the past 8 years has consistently invested in production improvements.

Based on a standard, Single Brick Equivalent (SBE), since 2001 the reduction in energy use across the industry has been approximately than 3.99MJ per brick. Across the 1.6 billion bricks made in Australia this is the equivalent of permanently turning off over 3.37 million 60-watt light globes or taking over 23,000 cars off the road.

The intensity of action has also increased with average energy reduction being 12.5 percent since 2005 compared to 6.95 percent for the previous five years.

During 2008/09 the brick industry is also investing in a full life cycle analysis to develop a comprehensive strategy to reduce the footprint of the brick industry. This strategy will guide the brick industry’s investment during the commencement of the Australian emissions trading scheme.

For further information on Think Brick Australia’s climate change position or actions taken by the brick industry to reduce their footprint please read our submission to the Garnaut Review.

For a summary of Think Brick Australia’s full scale energy efficiency research please read our submission to the Garnaut Review’ Energy Efficiency in the Built Environment Forum.

Garnaut Submission – Design of Australia ETS

Garnaut Submission – Forum 5