Sustainability Goals in a Cost of Living Crisis
Image courtesy of Michael Coghlan.
I actually robbed the title of this article from another online article. You see I recently set up a Google alert on the term sustainability to see what were the “latest trends” on the term ‘sustainability’. It was something I learnt about in an online marketing seminar. There are so many of these nowadays since Covid showed us the way! Whilst the article just took me down a random wormhole of how big business can still achieve sustainability during a cost of living crisis, it made me reflect on how this would play out in the architecture/construction industry. When I graduated from Architecture School it was back in 2008 and we were all preparing to leave university to become Uber drivers. Our lecturers at the time were warning of the dire nature of the last recession in the 90’s and how work was few and far between. They said prepare yourself for a weak employment market and perhaps take a year off to travel the world and allow things to recover. How wrong they were! Somehow Australia sidestepped that recession and there was plenty of work available.
We now find ourselves in very different set of economic conditions and whilst we are all hoping that somehow we can dodge a recession, the clear and present danger is inflation and its effect on the increasing cost of living. It was a welcome announcement that the Government is investing in affordable housing. Surely this is the one big issue facing many people as both rents and mortgages keep climbing. The problem at the moment is you can’t build new houses as fast as people move into them. Affordable housing needs to be consistently on the agenda, in my opinion it’s one of the most important issues of our time. When people don’t have secure housing, you get all sorts of social and health issues stemming from this failure. This is firmly in the government’s lap. Whilst there are private organisations tackling the issue as well, there needs to be more incentives and more budget put over to increase the supply. Affordable housing also needs to be sustainably designed housing, it can’t be project homes at the outskirts of cities robbing valuable farming land and not well connected by public transport. This disastrous style of housing continues to this day and every time I drive past one I shake my head and cry!
Okay, enough ranting - to get back to my borrowed article title, what are 3 ways we can balance sustainability goals of the aforementioned affordable housing (or for any house for that matter!).
1. REDUCING HEATING/COOLING LOADS
This one has to be on top of the list. It seems everyday the news is scaring us into skyrocketing energy prices. Whilst we can only hope for some government intervention so that we’re not buying Aussie fuel at International prices, what we can control is our use of energy. Apart from wearing ski gear inside in Winter and drinking ice water semi-naked in Summer, our homes need to work harder. Insulation is an obvious one. And not just the bare minimum of insulation - the best and highest value insulation needs to be installed. Good thing is, insulation is pretty cheap and you can buy Aussie made - win win! For those of you with old homes with insulation-less walls, there are ways to get it into them without having to rip off the cladding. For those of you who rent, have a nice chat to your landlord and tell them how it would be a good human saving thing to do to put insulation in your walls.
2. ELECTRIFY/SOLARFY
I just made up solarfy, but you know what I mean - Solar panels! I kinda feel these should be mandatory on all new builds with good solar access, and maybe one day this will happen (maybe after the inflation crisis). Most of you will know about the Electrify2515 campaign. If we can get our energy from the sun to power our home appliances, hot water and vehicles, it means less reliance on fossil fuels and therefore reducing costs in the long term. And whilst there’s been a recent uptick in the costs of solar panels, the long term trend is for them to get cheaper and more efficient. Hopefully this also works for batteries!
3. GROW YOUR OWN FOOD
Even if this is a herb garden on a balcony. Can you imagine if everyone grew their own herbs, that would be saving the farm vehicle energy, the transport energy, the fridge in the supermarket energy and the energy to go to your supermarket and then store it in your fridge. Times that by about 8 billion people and that’s significant energy and money savings. Apologies to all you herb farmers out there, I’m just using you as an example. Fortunately for you, we’re all not green thumbs. We as well as all the restaurants and salad dressing manufacturers will still need your herbs!!
I could add a bunch more ways to balance architectural sustainability goals in a cost of living crisis. Things like double glazing, building orientation, window shading, thermal mass, light coloured roofs, locally sourced materials, especially timber. Actually the irony is in the title, because the more sustainable we become so too does our cost of living. Perhaps the title should have been - How to beat a cost of living crisis with sustainability goals. Take that Inflation Dragon!