Wave & Covid-19

A quick update on what Wave Consulting is doing and why, in regard to Covid-19. We are a small company, so we don’t want to get carried away with what we do in this context, but here are a few little changes happening at our desk.

Wave Consulting has started a remote working / working from home policy

We trust the science and medical advice, and will therefore work from home from now until it is safe to return to our co-working office. There is no shortage of medical advice (WHO, AMA, Dept. of Health) that this strategy is necessary. The critical issue here isn’t whether we get sick, but if by not self-isolating we increase the risk of others getting sick and we then are actually accelerating the transmission rate in the whole community. 

There are more important things than work

It is going to be a difficult period, for many people, and to be honest it reinforces that there is a lot more to life than just work. So, while we will keep working, we have to be aware that there is now a whole lot of other, and bigger, issues going on in your community and ours. 

Leave no one behind

We’ve been working on a ‘Leave no one behind’ project for the past 12 months, with a team led by Monash University and lots of other smart people, in relation to Sustainable Development Goals and water goals.  Which means we are a whole lot more knowledgeable about what this all means for those less able, those in remote communities, and those that are already struggling financially. It might not make a big difference, but one of our focuses is to take a little bit of time each day to think about and help others.  

We can still deliver our work, with the aid of video conferencing and field visits, as per usual

Realistically 95% of our work can continue as per usual. We have some site visits that can still be done, and we have a lot of work that is done in an office. We are still able to get through work exactly as we used to. What we will do though is continue to focus on how to CONNECT with people, without sitting in the same room. 

Finally, we see a lot of parallels re: ‘#flattenthecurve’ and the work we do on resilient and smart water and energy systems

Turns out we’ve been working on ‘#flattenthecurve’ for a long time, but for water and energy instead! We might have a go at exploring these links in a blog when we have time.

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Thanks and take care.

Inner city sustainability precinct (Younghusband and IIG)

Great to see ongoing development and progress with the Younghusband development by Impact Investment Group (https://www.impact-group.com.au/).

IIG announced two big tenants and move towards delivering stage 1 of the masterplan - announced in the AFR yesterday: https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/fresh-legs-for-a-younghusband-20200213-p540gr

Wave Consulting drafted the initial sustainability master plan, with a target of zero water and energy use across the whole precinct. We put forward a range of innovative ways to achieve these targets.

We continue to seek and develop creative ways to reduce water and energy demands, and create distributed and smarter local systems.

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(Image source: AFR, IIG, Woods Bagot)

We won some awards!

Recently our water contribution to some landscape plans won some awards.

We worked with the City of Melbourne on the Moonee Ponds Strategic Opportunities Plan, and City of Knox on the Lewis Park Masterplan. Both were led by McGregor Coxall, landscape architects, who were savvy enough to put in award applications to AILA.

The Moonee Ponds Strategic Opportunities Plan won a Victorian and National AILA award. The Lewis Park Masterplan won a Victorian award.

Vic award – Lewis Park https://aila.awardsplatform.com/gallery/rnolaxNy/qjpNpGod?search=8b4678d6f44b722d-16

Vic award – Moonee Ponds https://aila.awardsplatform.com/gallery/rnolaxNy/qjpNpGod?search=8b4678d6f44b722d-16

Aust award – Moonee Ponds https://aila.awardsplatform.com/gallery/xDMAkbDz/goBOkMXY?search=fe703e215eea632b-60

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Kiribati: climate change ground zero?

Is Kiribati ‘ground zero’ for  climate change? 

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After recently visiting Kiribati, a small island in the Pacific, I think it probably is!

I was in the region on a project for SPREP (and UNDP, UNESCO, WMO, SPC), to assess water, climate and hydrological services capacity across 21 countries.  Had some in depth discussions with many countries, but more importantly saw first-hand the nature of water issues and climate change in these small countries. 

I’ve only dipped my toe in the waters here with a short visit, but Kiribati is an equally inspiring and devastating country. Kiribati is picture postcard perfect in many ways. 

But its beauty hides the catastrophic threat climate change poses to these people. It’s a story of what a place looks like when water, energy, food, climate, infrastructure and the people struggle to coexist, and how risky that situation is in this island.

Kiribati is made up of 33 atolls in the Pacific, and is virtually on the equator.  The two largest island atolls (5000 km apart) house most of the people.  South Tarawa, where I visited, is a series of islands connected by one road.  They have 52,000 people living here, some in pretty awful conditions and housing. They are forecasting they could have 100,000 living here within 20 years, as people from the outer island migrate into the ‘urban centre’.  The other is Kiritimati, which is almost closer to South America than Australia, but I wasn’t able to visit that one in my short travels.

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So why is it ground zero?

The first issue is about land and space.  As some of the photos show – Tarawa where I visited is a slither of an island – sometimes connected by just a sand spit and the main two lane road.  The highest place is 3 metres above sea level. 

I think I saw only two soccer pitches.  There literally isn’t space (or width), to fit a field. I worked out the island is probably as dense (population wise) as Hong Kong.  But without a single high rise. 

This island and country is living in a vice. The water is closing in on them from six sides.  From above the climate becomes more variable, more storms, cyclones, more droughts.  From the sides it is coming up the beach and over the sea walls.  But the worst is from below, and the impact on the groundwater.  Their main source of water is groundwater.  When it rains the water infiltrates very quickly and sits in the subsurface of the island, as what we call a groundwater lens.  Like a pocket of freshwater under the surface.  But as the sea rises, this pocket of available freshwater (that can run out in a drought, and is at huge risk of being contaminated by pollution from the people themselves), gets squeezed – or more to the point becomes slightly saltier. 

Now they have a water supply system, but it leaks and is mostly PVC and gets cracked or people just cut into it.  People don’t pay for water, so don’t really have any financial drive to save water.  And because it leaks, it is very expensive to build new water sources, knowing that it will just leak out again.  They are building a desalination plant. But these plants use lots of energy (and energy comes from importing petrol and diesel), to create water, that will flow down pipes and leak. To be fair they are including a big solar farm to offset the energy required for this plant, but I think they will struggle to find enough space to offset all of that energy demand.

Without metering and billing, it is hard to estimate how much the water is leaking.  I.e. is 20% leaking? Is 50%? 

Because it leaks so much, and there is a limited amount in the groundwater, each house gets 2 hours of water every 2 days.  2 out of 48 hours you have running water.  That pretty much rules out any teenagers and their long showers moving to Kiribati.  While your 2 hours is on, people stockpile water.  Containers everywhere.  For washing, cooking, etc etc.  Rainwater tanks are common, but I think mostly as part of larger building works.  Probably too expensive for the ones that need it most.

And sewage.  Well half of main capital and the island have a sewage system. The other half don’t.  They literally go to the toilet on the beach. And fishing is their main source of food. 

Sewage isn’t treated, but pumped out to the edge of the reef, using a saltwater system.  On a windy day and with the wrong tide it would flow back into the beach.  Not filtered at all.  Now they have built a longer outfall, so it isn’t coming back to the beach anymore.  What it does to the nearby marine life and local fish population no yet knows.  Now admittedly most coastal cities do this (e.g. Sydney).  But they filter the sewage first and send it a long way offshore.

Water is connected to several other problems.  Growing food (there is very limited space and no topsoil, as well as risk of salt water intrusion).  Importing food (when I was there it had been 8 weeks since any fresh food was imported – supermarkets look like warehouses – no fresh stuff just tinned, packaged and bottled). And then there is the waste from imported food. Tourism also is connected to these issues.  A lack of infrastructure making to very difficult to increase tourism.  (the main tourism website states “You won't see any fluffy towels and swim-up bars here”).

One day I ventured to North Tarawa.  Got a little boat across the water.  Had lunch and then wanted to go for a swim on the ocean side (where it is just subject to ocean currents, not sewage).  Wondered through a village or two.  Spoke to some boys who showed me the way to the water.  Good little kids. Oldest one was called ‘Oleario’. Thought it was very amusing to see me just walking around (most people are on tours).  Walked back with them and then as I said good bye I saw their local two water wells.  Just horrible.  These guys live in what are referred to as the outer islands.  No running water at all and no sewage.  That well is how they clean and drink and cook every day.  And it will get saltier over time.   But the kids knew about tides and overtopping of the sea water. 

Climate change is forecast raise sea levels by up to 98 cm.  The oceans will be warmer, with more cyclones, the summers hotter, the droughts longer, the floods worse.  It is a wicked trajectory.   And Oleario and his brothers literally can’t live in that village.

Sea walls help (just last weekend they had a king tide that saw many people sand bagging the island), to a point, but don’t insulate you from these issues, especially groundwater problems.

But I said it was inspiring too.  Well to see people live, laugh, and just get on with life is inspiring.  And to also seem them turn up at international meetings and describe the impact of climate change in their country, is also inspiring.

So in the spirit of helping these guys, and to reduce the severity of climate change, I think it is worth doing everything you can.  Reduce emissions, buy or generate clean energy, create less waste, eat less meat, don’t fly or offset your flights.  Every bit counts.   

Hope to post a blog on the SPREP project in a month or so.

Supporting the change makers

Very excited to say we are supporting some great organisations this year, and hope you can too!

  • WaterAid are doing great work across many countries - including helping mothers get access to clean water and save them from walking many kilometres to get access to clean water. See their work here - https://www.wateraid.org

  • ASRC do amazing work in Australia helping those that seek asylum. See their work here - https://www.asrc.org.au/

  • And finally Renew have been raising money for more clean and renewable energy for communities in TImor Leste. See their site - https://renew.org.au/

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Wave newsletters now live

We’re excited to announce that we are now publishing newsletters.

Subscribe to future newsletters with this link.

Thanks and enjoy reading what we are doing and thinking about.

Will this become the most water sensitive house in Melbourne?

I spent the morning at a residential house in Boroondara (eastern suburbs of Melbourne), talking about the potential to create the most water sensitive house in Melbourne (big call I know!).

Already the owner has a 26,000 litre tank that captures runoff from the entire house, a greywater system, an bund to capture overland flows, and an irrigation system across the whole site (but not always in operation).

We spent some time going through how to maximise every single drop of rainfall, reduce overland flows, increase infiltration, increase evapotranspiration, support the veggie patch, plant more natives and fruit trees, and the creation of a new ephemeral wetland.

We mapped out a plan for:

  • A new leaky tank drip fed line from the 26,000 litre tank

  • Ephemeral wetland fed from overflow

  • Adjusted sump pump to extract more water from pit that collects all roof runoff

  • Reconfigure of greywater to act as a back up for tank water

  • Reconfigure of greywater to add a natural filter bed at source prior to gravity fed irrigation

  • Two new infiltration trenches

  • One new raingarden for overflow from stormwater pit

  • A maintenance regime

The stormwater on this property will then virtually never leave via a pipe!

What I think is interesting is that we were able to identify some small but very significant issues to improve the performance of this household system. For example the stormwater sump that was collecting all runoff from the house and pumping to the tank, had a lot of standing water due to the location of the float. I think we could harvest 25% more water just by adjusting this float.

What I found particularly inspiring is that this whole project wasn’t driven by any compliance or requirement to meet planning controls. Just a passionate and energetic home owner doing their bit!

Will hope to revisit during construction and verify this is on track to be the most water sensitive house :)

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Why is environmental messaging so negative?

Martin Luther King’s famous speech “I have a dream” is something I think a lot about in the context of environmental awareness and engagement. It wasn’t “I have a nightmare”, but a vision of hope.

So why is so much of the environmental news so negative? Yes we need to know the state of the environment and its future trajectory, but is it just feeding into an overall state of "eco-anxiety". I think that is a really good term, that captures the dread people (me included) feel when you hear and read about the dire state of the climate and the world.

I assume the fundamental premise here is that people will change (behaviour, purchasing habits, advocacy, etc) if they know more about what they are doing to the environment and how bad it looks.

The Guardian Australia has started a publication called "The new normal.” It’s a powerful explanation of what is happening across Australia and what could happen under a climate change scenario. But it is pretty dark. I hope they move the series into something positive and some simple calls to action.

For example have a look at this forecast of increased temperatures across Australia.

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Click here to follow this series - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/the-new-normal

At Wave Consulting I often feel what we offer clients and people is a path to action. What is the smart thing we can do now, in your organisation or your home.

5 insights from Spark Conference 2018

Spent the day at the Spark Conference 2018 today. Great line up of renewable energy, climate and innovators from across the country. Five things I picked up today were:

  1. Victoria Solar incentive program will deliver 2GW of capacity (that is huge). More details here https://www.solar.vic.gov.au/

  2. Yes this a '“climate crisis/emergency”. ACF CEO Kelly O’Shanassy talked about the issues in using these terms, but more importantly it is about moving people to take action.

  3. Your super can change things. Superannuation is boring, but actually important. We heard that super is actually a larger volume of $ than sits in the ASX. You can choose to change your super funds to funds that are explicitly investing in better climate and renewable technologies.

  4. Plethora of models for tenants and community energy structures. Great to hear how Pingala, Allume and Sun Tenants are doing new things. Always interesting to hear how things work - i.e. who owns what and who pays for what. These companies are helping more people take action and generate and use more renewable power.

  5. Scaling from one house to precincts is key. Josh Bryne had a nice update on how the White Gum Valley project was going - lots of good stuff with water and energy. And also interesting mention of energy and water links - a favourite of ours!

This day has been great in inspiring us to continue to work towards more community solar and microgrid projects - so stay tuned for updates on these ideas and projects.

I tweeted a few facts and thoughts throughout the day. See below.

ISCA 2.0

How do you work out how ‘sustainable’ an infrastructure project is? The Infrastructure Sustainability Council or Australia has an updated tool (IS v2.0) to answer that exact question.  ISCA launched this tool in Melbourne in mid July, and are doing a roadshow around Australia to roll out this new tool.

We attended the launch and sent out a series of tweets throughout the presentation.

We are now working with a range of tools, IS v2.0 being one of them.  Some other useful tools include Green Star Design and As Built, BESS, MUSIC, & STORM. They are all tools to help us and clients objectively (and consistently from a planning / authority perspective) look at projects from a sustainability viewpoint. 

What was interesting was the fact that there are now several new categories: e.g. Green infrastructure and Workforce Sustainability.  We are hoping to report back on the use of v2.0 down the track. 

Click on the link to see the whole series of tweets.

What next for green buildings?

I attended the Green Building Council’s “Shaping the Future State” conference yesterday.  It was a mix of long form presentations and panels, and was hosted at ANZ’s 6 star building – but to be honest it was just another auditorium and we didn’t see any of the good green stuff.

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This blog has a few thoughts on what was discussed and where the green building industry is going.  

1. There is hope!

There is a lot of good stuff happening – across a range of sectors and scales, and I got the impression that there is real hope that we can transform our approach to building and cities and we can tackle climate change. 

We heard from Stefan Hajkowicz (CSIRO) on global megatrends (i.e. the future of tech, artificial intelligence, managing disease, food production etc).  I heard a lot of good news stories related to the way different industries are adapting and innovating. And your coffee barista is unlikely to be replaced by a robot!

Also we heard how there are some amazing projects in design and build right now.  I heard about Monash Uni microgrids, City of Greater Dandenong’s Springfield redevelopment, Broofield's innovative stadium designs and flexible buildings, and Younghusband development – which hey I like as Wave is working on it!

2. Carbon, carbon, carbon – what about everything else?

There is a huge focus on carbon and emissions. That is good and bad. Other issues were mentioned – biofuels for transport and green infrastructure – but there remains a huge focus on the carbon story.  In simple terms – a Green Star building has credits spread across 9 different categories – of which only one is about energy.  So green buildings and sustainable design are about a lot more than just energy.  Personally, I’d like to see more integration with water, landscapes, and increased awareness that waste is a huge part of an ecological footprint. 

This broader perspective is partly why at Wave we are in the middle of designing and building some small physical models which test and explore this interaction between green infrastructure, water and energy. 

3. New policy and codes

There are two new discussion papers, on the way or out now, from GBCA: Carbon Positive Roadmap and ‘Building with Nature’.  GBCA have also worked with Smart Cities Council Australia and NZ to release a Code for Smart Communities.  They all look pretty worthwhile and worthy reading.

See https://new.gbca.org.au/advocacy/thought-Leadership/ and https://anz.smartcitiescouncil.com/smart-cities-information-center/code-for-smart-communities

I look forward to next year's conference.

Sustainable Development Goals and Kanye West

Well you know things are getting through when Kanye West gets on board with the Sustainable Development Goals!

We blogged about our recent work on SDGs (see here - http://www.waveconsulting.com.au/blog-home/2018/3/13/sustainable-development-goals-what-why-how-what-next) and can't wait to see Kanye West quoted in our next meeting we have on SDGs :)