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Page Last Updated:
Monday, 8 December 2008
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Home>Council Services>Environment>Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD)
Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) is design that is socially and ecologically responsible. This includes consideration of the human and environmental impacts of building both in the present and the future.
Key considerations include passive design and careful siting; responsible use and disposal of materials and waste; socially responsible generation, management and use of water and energy resources; high indoor environmental quality, beauty and inspiration in the design and the impact on flora, fauna and local biodiversity.
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| Why consider ESD in the built form? | | Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) buildings are more comfortable and healthy to inhabit and while there may be increased construction costs, there are also ongoing financial benefits through reduced running costs and improved health of the occupants. Healthy buildings have been proven to improve the health of occupants and result in reduced absenteeism and improved individual health of the occupants.
Integrating ESD elements in built form has a number of benefits for the broader community - reduced greenhouse gas emissions; reduced water use; reduction in the impact of flooding events; protection of water quality; more sustainable resource use and reduced waste and support of sustainable products and materials industries.
Existing energy efficiency and water conservation measures in the Building Code of Australia are a positive first step, but are aimed at eliminating worst practice. A more comprehensive ESD approach is desirable to improve performance and understanding. A State Government ESD framework is preferable for consistency and extent of application, but following some years of development, the timeframe for roll-out is not clear. In the absence of a State system, Council has adopted the use of two tools to improve the performance of the built form.
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| Council's Role | | Knox City Council is committed to a sustainable natural environment. One of the greatest impacts upon this is the built form and Council has several roles in improving the performance of the built form within Knox.
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 | Leading by example. Designing and building projects that have a minimal impact upon the environment through the application of the tools to our own projects | | Support / Education. Provision of information and technical support to individuals and organisations. | | Advocacy. Continue to advocate to other levels of Government for a state wide and consistent approach to improving the performance of the built form or enabling Local Government to include higher standards within its controls.
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| How everyone can get involved | | New Buildings / major renovations. Employ a qualified architect or builder who has an appreciation and understanding of ESD in the built form to ensure that your early design ideas consider how the building will perform into the future. The two tools, Steps and SDS are excellent tools to facilitate the design and decision processes.
Existing homes. Council has been running a program called The Greenleaf Project to support businesses, households and schools in reducing their environmental impacts, whilst saving money and valuable resources. To find out more about this exciting and engaging program, click here.
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| STEPS – an assessment tool for residential developments | | STEPS (Sustainable Tools for Environmental Performance Strategy) has been developed by the City of Moreland and is currently being used by a number of Councils across Melbourne. The program is a web-based environmental sustainability assessment tool for the design of residential developments. It applies to stand alone, town-house and multi-unit developments and can be used for renovations or to assess the environmental performance of existing premises.
The environmental issues addressed are:
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| Greenhouse emissions from operating energy; | | peak energy use – total peak energy use impacts on the price of energy and the need to build new power stations, it is particularly an issue on hot days when air-conditioners are turned on across the State and a high peak load is created; | | mains water use; | | storm water impacts – large volumes of water entering the storm water system impacts on the health of our waterways and can contribute to flooding - using or treating rainwater on site is a much better option; and | | building materials impacts.
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| The Sustainable Design Scorecard – non-residential developments | | The Sustainable Design Scorecard has been developed by the City of Port Phillip and is currently used by a number of Melbourne Councils for the assessment of non-residential dwellings. The Sustainable Design Scorecard provides an assessment of the environmental impact of non-residential premises including commercial, industrial, community use and retail buildings. It operates in a similar way to STEPS but is currently a spreadsheet format rather than web-enabled.
This tool enables individuals to choose elements early in the design stage to improve the performance of their buildings.
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