A.G. Coombs Group White Papers

Sustainability: Bridging the Knowledge Gap

Thu, 24 May 2007 13:50:00 +1100

The Australian real estate market continues to demand greater environmentally sustainable performance at a time when the skills required to achieve performance enhancements are decreasing in the industry.
The skills shortage is compounded by a ‘knowledge gap’, which has occurred as critical knowledge of building design and operation is lost between different stages of the building life cycle.
A focus on a single rating number is contributing to a lack of the specific data that is required in order for performance uplifts to be achieved and maintained.
The introduction of tools that rate environmental performance, such as Green Star and ABGR, has brought about a change in the way real estate is designed and operated and has lifted awareness across the property sector.
The take up of the rating tools has been high, with over 100 projects having received or been registered for certification under Green Star and some 29% of the national office market having been rated using ABGR.
The rating tools have the potential to facilitate the transfer of knowledge, and to improve understanding of the real issues around sustainability performance outcomes, by focusing on data reporting at a more specific level.
If the knowledge gap is addressed, the Australian market environment presents a unique opportunity to achieve innovation and global best practice in measurement and reporting on sustainability performance.
Environmental performance rating tools have the potential to drive this change; however the industry must play a role in ensuring that Australia takes advantage of this opportunity.

Maintenance for Energy Efficiency and Ongoing HVAC System Tuning

Tue, 15 May 2007 13:48:00 +1100

This paper recognises the drivers and trends in the broader property industry that are demanding energy efficient maintenance and ongoing tuning for HVAC systems to improve their energy efficiency. The current HVAC maintenance paradigm is reviewed together with general maintenance practices and a series of issues and challenges are identified. Energy efficient maintenance is defined in terms of focus, scope, cost and benefits. The paper offers a way forward and suggested actions to encourage the development and promulgation of energy efficient HVAC maintenance practices through the industry.

The Ten Key Principles of Green Fire

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:32:00 +1100

Fire Protection Services are one particular area of buildings that has not been fully explored with respect to sustainable design, maintenance and management. There is significant opportunity to reduce the amount of water they use over their life, to substantially lessen the extent of materials and other environmental impacts required for their installation and ownership, and to lessen the limitations that fire services can sometimes place on achieving broader sustainability solutions and outcomes.

Ten key principles for “Green Fire” are put forward in this paper, grouped for convenience into the categories set out in the Green Building Council of Australia’s Green Star Office Design Rating Tool (v2). The appropriate Reference Number is provided where there is a direct correlation to Green Star points.

Fire Safety Engineering Design and the Implications for Facility Managers

Wed, 03 May 2006 12:57:00 +1100

One of the primary benefits of a fire safety engineering or performance approach to fire and life safety systems design is that it allows for the consideration of all the features that will be inherent in a particular building, including structure, installed systems and management and occupancy regimes, when assessing the overall fire safety requirements. This can lead to substantial cost savings for building developers at the time of construction.

However because fire safety engineered solutions often rely on how the building will be operated and the integration of various systems they can place significant responsibilities on the Facilities Manager to ensure that the fire safety of the building is maintained. A very clear understanding of the resultant elements of a fire safety engineering design is required when formulating occupancy and maintenance management systems and procedures.

HVAC - What the future holds (maybe!)

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 13:24:00 +1100

The provision of Heating Ventilation and Air-Conditioning to buildings, or simply air conditioning as it has become generally referred to, has become a complex business since its widespread introduction began after World War 2. Simple systems to provide heating and ventilation have evolved into a sophisticated technology that controls the indoor environment maintaining temperature, humidity and air quality.

What of the future of HVAC? Whilst predicting the future is always a risky endeavour, particularly with anything to do with technology, there is always something to be gained from analysing current drivers of change and trends and speculating over how they may affect matters. At the very least you gain a better insight into why things are the way they are and at best you are enabled to successfully prepare yourself for future changes.

So let's take a quick look at some of the drivers of change in commercial buildings and speculate on how these may affect air conditioning.

Green Age Buildings - The New Challenges for Commissioning

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 13:24:00 +1100

This paper provides a précis of the issues facing building services commissioning in Australia and the current shortcomings. It looks at the drivers and trends in the industry that are demanding change to commissioning practices including the requirement for more sustainable buildings and building practices, the demand for higher quality building services and better indoor environments, and the uptake of new technologies and the integration of active and passive building systems.

Out of these the paper identifies the commissioning related challenges that face the industry in the areas of the specification of commissioning requirements and designer involvement in commissioning, technical and management skill shortages, Industry knowledge gaps, technology application, new building delivery methods and management, assuring energy and environmental targets are realised, and commissioning management and knowledge capture and management.

The paper offers a series of recommendations or "calls for action" for change to meet these challenges.

Integrated Systems Commissioning

Tue, 01 Feb 2005 13:24:00 +1100

To meet increasing performance requirements and environmental and energy standards building systems have become more complex and interdependent, and increasingly integrated with the building's physics and the occupant's behaviour. To deliver the required outcomes buildings and their systems must now be commissioned with a more sophisticated approach than that generally applied in the past and designers must play a far more active role in the commissioning of their designs.

This paper provides an approach to integrated systems commissioning and offers insights into how the role of commissioning must grow and develop in the future.

Towards the Green Age Building

Wed, 01 Sep 2004 13:24:00 +1100

The Australian property industry is about to enter a significant period of energy efficiency regulation and "structured encouragement". This paper looks at some of the background to the forthcoming energy efficiency amendments to the Building Code of Australia. It puts forward a series of industry impacts that may arise from the increased focus on energy efficiency, elaborates on the issues involved and the consequential challenges that the industry faces.

Sustainability and Maintenance for Energy Efficiency

Thu, 01 Jul 2004 13:25:00 +1100

Sustainability is founded on consistency. The challenge facing future building owners and managers is in achieving and retaining a consistent level of energy efficiency within buildings. Maintenance for Energy Efficiency is primarily about having a process in place to do things consistently well, rather than sporadically doing things great.

Whilst much focus may be placed on tuning a new building to achieve energy performance this is often lost over time. It is generally not until an energy audit is undertaken and the building is formally compared against expectations that problems are identified, often highlighted by increased energy costs.

The Importance of Technical Maintenance Planning & Implementation to Facilities Management

Thu, 01 Apr 2004 13:25:00 +1100

While the term Facilities Management can mean many things to different people and
organisations, it is always important to remember the management of the technical aspects of a facility that can sometimes be pushed aside in the daily grind of Facilities Management, and responding to the internal or external clients’ needs.

The daily grind often means reacting to the client’s “political” requirements and the areas of greatest immediate concern. Whilst non technical day to day issues such as cleaning and security can be very important to the client and its operations these should not overshadow the need for effective and legally compliant ongoing technical maintenance management.

If we don’t ensure the technical aspects remain a high priority and allow them to be pushed down the priority list, the Facilities Manager can often revert to reactive maintenance practices and end up constantly playing catch up. This results in circumstances where issues can not be rectified easily, or cost effectively, or within an acceptable time frame.