Council House 2
The City of Melbourne's new office building, Council House 2 (CH2), is a visionary new building for about 540 City of Melbourne staff, representing world leadership in office building design. CH2 is a 10-storey office building with ground-floor retail spaces and underground parking at 218-242 Little Collins Street. It is due for completion in August 2006.
CH2 is the first 6 Star rated building under the Green Building Council of Australia's Green Star rating Scheme. It will reduce electricity consumption by 85% and gas consumption by 93% (compared to the current building). CH2 has sustainable technologies incorporated throughout, including a water-mining plant in the basement, phase-change materials for cooling, automatic night-purge windows, and a façade of louvres (powered by photovoltaic cells) that track the sun. Electricity will also be produced onsite from wind turbines, solar panels, and a gas fired cogeneration plant.
Not only will CH2 reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve sustainability, it is also looking to add enormous vibrancy to Little Collins Street, with new shops, cafes and pedestrian connections.
Council is planning a public tour program once the building is occupied. More information is available on the City of Melbourne website.
Sustainable Office Buildings
In December 2005 the Ecologically Sustainable Office Buildings policy came into force in the Melbourne Planning Scheme as part of the 'C60 Amendment'. This policy applies to new office buildings and major refurbishments. The policy ensures that new buildings incorporate design measures, which are integrated into the building fabrics, as well as adopting technologies and management procedures which minimise energy consumption, waste, emissions and water usage.
The policy states: Buildings greater than 2,500sqm to achieve a 4.5 Star ABGR rating, and all office buildings greater than 5,000sqm to also achieve a minimum of 4 Stars under Green Star, as well as a maximum of 30litres/day/person water use.
Savings in The City
The City of Melbourne has been running a sustainability program called 'Savings in The City' for accommodation hotels in the City. It is a partnership with Sustainability Victoria, Origin Energy, City West Water, ECO-Buy, Travelsmart and Hotel Motel Accommodation Association and Tourism Victoria. There are currently 25 hotels (20% of the rooms available in the municipality) participating in the program to improve their environmental impacts.
Participating hotels have undergone water, waste and energy performance benchmarking using the Green Globe 21's Earthcheck tool. Energy assessments have been undertaken by 10 of the participating hotels provided by Origin energy. Fifteen participating Hotels have been Waste Wise Certified and have Waste Reduction Action Plans in place, looking to lift recycling rates from 30-60% on average.
See the City of Melbourne website for more information.
Re-setting councils CCP Goals
City of Melbourne should also be congratulated for increasing their CCP Goal to 50%. Melbourne’s corporate emissions are currently 26% below base year levels, and Council has just endorsed an increase in the 2010 corporate target, from 30% to 50%. Council still has their stretch goal of zero net emissions by 2020.
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