Collaborations and partnerships are key

Dr Keith Hampson CEO, SBEnrc and John V. McCarthy AO Chair, SBEnrc

Service to Australian industry bolstered - for a lower energy, lower carbon future

We recently held a successful industry workshop in partnership with the Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering - a not-for-profit company which aims to foster excellence and innovation in advanced engineering throughout Australia. COO Alex McKenna spoke on the Low Energy High Rise Project. This project, working in collaboration with the property sector, seeks to identify low cost strategies for operating energy efficient, high rise office buildings. Professor Peter Newman from Curtin University spoke on the SBEnrc’s research in Program 1: Greening the Built Environment and the inroads being made for a more energy efficient, lower carbon future.

This workshop was the first in a planned continuing series of industry events to be jointly hosted by the Warren Centre and SBEnrc.

In November we are running a series of national industry foresighting workshops in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Invited industry thought leaders will collaborate in a specifically designed foresight process that builds on and extends the Construction 2020 Vision, created by the CRC for Construction Innovation, the SBEnrc’s predecessor. The goal of these workshops is to establish R&D priorities for the industry across a range of environmental, social, technical, and business scenarios. A follow-up series of workshops will be open to the broader industry to attend will be held in March 2012. We will provide more information on these in early 2012.

Project news

As part of our collaborative commitment, the Greening the Built Environment program research teams have recently concluded a comprehensive round of national stakeholder engagement, holding a total of seven workshops with partners in Perth, Brisbane and Townsville. These projects include:

• Design and Performance Assessment of Commercial Green Buildings
• The Future of Roads: The Role of Road Building in Reducing Environmental Pressures both Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change
• Harnessing the Potential of Biophilic Urbanism in Australian Cities

The combined research team of over 15 staff from Curtin University and QUT worked together to run workshops that engaged with over 120 partners and stakeholders. The focus of these workshops was to explore the research projects in detail and receive targeted guidance on:

• important research considerations
• preferences for the direction and scope of the research
• aspects of potential deliverables that would be of value.

Based on the feedback received, the research teams will be updating the project scopes for the current stage through to September 2012, and developing the planned scope for the second stage of these projects.

We look forward to sharing the results of these and other projects with you as we deliver our project outcomes into early 2012

Upcoming Events

In keeping with our national and international collaboration, I am pleased to invite you to the following upcoming events:

1. Healthy Buildings 2012 - the official conference of The International Society and Indoor Air Quality and Climate will be in Brisbane 8-12 July 2012. Submissions for workshop proposals close on Friday 14 October. For more information go to www.hb2012.org.
2. The CIB World Building Congress 2013 will be held in Brisbane from 5-9 May 2013. SBEnrc and QUT are coordinating this congress on behalf of the CIB. This is the premier global event held each three years profiling leading achievements in building and construction research. Sign up for conference updates, for information on attending or on submitting a paper at the Congress website http://worldbuildingcongress2013.com.

Best regards

Keith Hampson
CEO