Net zero homes short course

In collaboration with UNSW’s Australian Graduate School of Engineering

Since 2023, Wave Consulting has been facilitating the Net Zero Homes short course in partnership with UNSW to focus on the practical application of effective sustainable design of a net zero home.

Overview

8-week program
blended learning
facilitated by Wave Consulting’s Director, Rob Catchlove, for UNSW’s Australian Graduate School of Engineering

Action the latest science and engineering technologies to design and construct sustainable net zero homes

The urgency of addressing climate change is evident as it unfolds before us. Over the past decade, seven out of ten years have ranked as the hottest on record worldwide. Australia, in particular, faces increasingly frequent and severe weather events, including floods, droughts, and bushfires. These occurrences underscores the imperative for action, both locally and globally.

Designing our homes to be more environmentally sustainable not only mitigates the acceleration of climate change but also prepares us for future climate challenges. Given that homes typically endure for 50 years or longer, prioritising the creation of net-zero homes is imperative.

Short course focus

The program prioritises advancements in building science and energy and water solutions; offering actionable steps for immediate implementation:

reduce your reliance on the grid
lower your emissions
enhance your contribution to a net zero economy.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a current project to the program, or you may use one of our provided case studies. This allows you to apply the knowledge gained from the course to a tangible, real-world scenario within your local context.

Participants will gain skills and understanding in the latest science and engineering technologies to inform how you approach your next ‘net zero home’, whether you are a professional in the building and architecture field, as a developer or a homeowner.
- Week 1 – Defining net zero and key principles
- Week 2 – Rating schemes, approvals and regulations
- Week 3 – Modelling
- Week 4 – Design solutions
- Week 5 – One day face-to-face workshop
- Week 6 – Constructability
- Week 7 – Monitoring and usage
- Week 8 - The final plan
A great professional development opportunity for:
- designers
- engineers
- architects
- planners
- developers
- innovators
- sustainability experts.

Cost investment

Enrolling in this course represents an investment of less than 0.5% of the cost of a new home. By embracing the design principles and sustainability solutions taught in this course, you have the opportunity to potentially save thousands in bills over the lifetime of the dwelling. Moreover, you’ll be contributing to the collective effort of preserving our planet!

Upcoming short course dates

The Net Zero Homes Course has been designed to really bring together a whole lot of principles and take a very practical approach to how we go about designing net zero homes. What we know is that 37% of global emissions relate to buildings. So what we do in terms of the way we build in our new homes is really critical to achieve net zero. In Australia, we have 200,000 new homes built every year and thousands more renovations.
There's a huge opportunity with each of these homes that can't be revisited for some 50 plus more years. So this is a great opportunity to bring together all sorts of different elements that contribute to creating net zero homes. What we'll do in this course is really bring together in a very practical sense some of the key ideas around How do we define what net zero is?
What are the different rating schemes? What are the different design principles? What's the modeling software that's required to be used? How are we going to monitor these sort of homes, and what's the materials and the construction element of all this as well. But what we'll be doing is taking a very practical approach to this, what we want is for you to bring your project to this course.
And really redesign essentially what you're working on in collaboration with everyone else around the table. So this course is designed for anyone in the engineering, architecture, town planning, the developers, the designers sustainability experts, and even the homeowners as well. This is a seven week course and it includes a mix of online learning and face to face again with a very sort of practical focus of bringing your project into the course and hopefully coming out of that course with a new net zero home. So I really look forward to seeing you there.