Compass 2024 Video - Built Environment of the Future
Built Environment of the Future: Insights from Davina Rooney, CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia
At Compass 2024, presented by COLORBOND® steel, we were joined by Davina Rooney, the CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). An engineer by trade, Davina has a wealth of experience in sustainability and building consulting across the globe and brings this experience to her role at GBCA.
The GBCA rates buildings through the Green Star system; educates industry and key decision-makers about best practice; and advocates for policies and programs that support healthy, resilient, positive buildings and places. In this video, Davina shares GBCA’s vision for the future built environment.
Davina highlights the necessity of designing future cities with sustainability at their core. “Future cities must be decarbonised, with highly efficient buildings powered by renewables that are fossil fuel free. But at the same time, they need to be places that are designed with Country – where everyone is welcome, and we acknowledge our first Australians.”
The challenge for future cities also lies in merging urban living with nature amidst a biodiversity crisis. GBCA's 2024 social value paper explores ways to quantify social value, emphasising that connected communities, well-designed spaces, and taking care of everyone’s well-being lie at the heart of successful projects. According to Davina, when we get that sense of belonging right, we create better places for people to live, work and play.
Advanced materials are an important part of this vision. As buildings decarbonise and incorporate more renewables, a lot of the carbon of the future will be in the materials used. Davina explains that the focus must be on making materials work harder and last longer, and instead of single-use, we need to embrace circularity. This approach is essential because approximately half of the materials produced globally are used in buildings and infrastructure.
“To look at the steel industry, whether that's higher strength steel, whether that's more solar reflective roofs, there's lots of opportunities to do this while setting up the materials for later and greater reuse,” says Davina.
Davina highlights the critical importance of optimising materials, “As our buildings decarbonise, as we use more renewables, the split of emissions changes from mainly being the energy in use to mainly about the materials. There’s a job to do here,” she concludes.
Watch the video: Built Environment of the Future: Insights from Davina Rooney, CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia
Further information:
- See our sustainability resources on steel.com.au
- Visit the Green Building Council of Australia website
- Watch more videos from Compass 2024:
- See the entire Compass 2024 event
- Compass Opening with Shelley Craft, TV Presenter, The Block and Mark Vassella, Managing Director and CEO of BlueScope
- Designing with Sustainability in Mind with Talina Edwards, Director, Envirotecture
- An Engineer's Approach to Decarbonisation with Raed El Sarraf, Principal Engineer, WSP
- Future Design Trends and Aesthetics with Alexander Symes, Director, Alexander Symes Architect
- BlueScope Innovation and the Fitzroy River Bridge Case Study, A Collaborative Future for Steelmaking and Renewables
- Directors Cut – Renewables