We work with everyone to drive this change. So, across the whole built environment ecosystem, looking for how we get on the bus, so to speak, and how do we get there together.

Welcome to 100 Climate Conversations. Thank you for joining us. I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the ancestral homelands upon which we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We respect their Elders, past, present and future and recognise their continuous connection to Country. Today’s number 78 of 100 conversations happening every Friday. The series presents 100 visionary Australians that are taking positive action to respond to the most critical issue of our time, climate change. We’re recording today live in the Boiler Hall of the Powerhouse Museum. Before it was home to the museum, it was the Ultimo Power Station. Built in 1899, it supplied coal-powered electricity to Sydney’s tram system in the 1960s. In the context of this architectural artefact, we shift our focus forward to the innovations of the net zero revolution. I’m Craig Reucassel from docos like War on Waste, and Fight for Planet A. Davina Rooney is the chief executive of the Green Building Council of Australia, an industry body representing over 600 businesses with a collective annual turnover of more than $46 billion. The Green Building Council is perhaps best known for its Green Star sustainability rating system for Australian buildings. Rooney began her career as a structural engineer before specialising in sustainability. Please join me in welcoming Davina. So, you’re an engineer by trade, but from an early part of your career, you became passionate about sustainability. What drove that change?

Well, I was always involved in the community. I always say for people to be involved in sustainability, you want to care about your family’s health, your community’s health, the planet’s health. So, I was always engaged in this space. And when I started at global engineering firm Arup, I was that awful young upstart. My first week and I was like, I’d like to work on a cool bridge and sustainable materials. And later that week I was working on a maritime museum bridge and an embodied carbon report so, upfront carbon in materials. So, right from the get-go. And I loved it. And so, I said to the family, you know, I’ll do all the core engineering, but I want to play in this cool sustainability thing on the side. And I was so lucky, I got to be their Australian fellow. So, I got to go work in London, in Arup Associates, the one place where the engineers and architects work together, and that was like the home of sustainability, where they’d have a crack at it back in the day. And then I got to go to the Indian Himalayas on their community project. So, my first ever solar project was in the Indian Himalayas.

Wow. Amazing. What year was this? When was this?

So, I was in London in 2002-04 and in India in Ladakh for eight months in 2004. And then you come home to beautiful Australia, you get to work a little bit with the iconic Opera House. Then you say, you know, where was that person that gave away their shoes in the Himalayas? You know, and then I got a call. There was an earthquake in Pakistan, and because I’d worked right near the region, I was deployed by the Australian Government to help in that region. You come back and you say, my world’s changed. I’ve got to move to this, I’ve got to do this every day and find a way that you can contribute to this every day.

That’s amazing. At what point was climate change kind of become a part of your sustainability in your community conversations? Was that early on or later on?

Very early on it was about – I think the thing that changed was as soon as we were talking about sustainability, we’re obviously talking about climate, but we thought we had a long time. So, we used to talk about climate change, we used to talk about our grandchildren, and we used to talk about it as a faraway thing in other places. And then look, the horror bushfires, 2019, 2020, right here, right now. My son looks at me and he’s like, ‘I can’t breathe at school. What are you going to do about it?’ It’s right here, right now. This generation.

It does seem very much now, and I guess that’s important to us, this question then, how vital is addressing our built environment to dealing with the climate change challenge? Because I guess let’s kind of set the parameters, how much of our emissions are kind of coming from buildings, the building of them, the running of them, you know, how much is that contributing to climate change?

So, globally, about 38% of the carbon emissions are attributed to the built environment. So, that’s both operating them and building them. And here in Australia, more than 50% of the energy we use in the grid is from buildings. So, we’re a big part of the problem and there’s a chance for us to be a big part of the solution. The scariest stat is that the International Energy Agency predicts between now and 2060, all the buildings we have in the world, we will double them.

Can we build twice as many buildings as we have now in a sustainable way? And I guess let’s start by looking at some of the challenges within buildings, because, you know, a lot of our buildings are built with very high intensity emissions, things with cement, concrete, steel. How are we going to solve that problem?

Well, so there’s like exactly as you point is a series of problems. No, we shouldn’t double it. We should use the spaces — look at this beautiful space, this beautiful conversation where we’re in the Powerhouse, which is reusing and regenerating itself. So, no, that number can’t be double. We need to get down from there. But how we operate the buildings, we need highly efficient buildings powered by renewables. And then we have to go hard after the next bit, which is how do we build them better. So, we’ve got to go really hard in the hard-to-abate sectors, concrete, steel, we’re seeing huge improvements in that space and then none of it’s going to be enough. So, we’re going to have to offset the last bit with nature. Nature-based solutions. So, we don’t have a technical problem — here’s these fabulous geniuses that know what we’ve got to do. We’ve got a policy problem and we’ve got a people problem because we’re not implementing all the solutions that we know to do.

As of 2019, you’ve been the CEO of the Green Building Council Australia. Firstly, take me through what does the Green Building Council do? What’s its aims for its members?

Great. So, the Green Building Council of. Australia is an industry organisation and not-for-profit that exists to transform industry towards sustainability. So, we do four things, we rate buildings — Green Star, which we’ll talk about. Importantly, we advocate. So, we partner with government to drive change. How do you work through the new construction code in a way that works with the industry? How do we set up settings in different councils? Working earlier this year with the Property Council and Senator McAllister, we published a net zero pathway for the built environment. Then we educate. So, we’ll do fabulous things like today or our own conference and training series. But the most important thing we do is we collaborate. Because I don’t build big developments. I don’t finance areas, I don’t get to build the next Powerhouse. So, we work with everyone to drive this change. So, our members keep growing by the day, but it’s everyone from about 10% government orgs, big builders, big owners, all the consultant partnerships, the products manufacturers. So, across the whole built environment ecosystem looking for how we get on the bus, so to speak, and how do we get there together. So, if we want to change everything, we need everyone. And so, what I love about these 100 Conversations is that we need to talk to everyone about it. So, we’ve been working with the [Global] Cooksafe Coalition. Last year, we launched with Neil Perry, Palisa Anderson that the cooking’s better on induction. And then we had property partners saying they’re taking their portfolios all electric so, take us seriously. You know, we’ve then had different partners come out over time, but we need to have a community conversation about the cooking’s better. And as the Asthma foundation points out, it’s safer for your family. At the moment, having gas in your home for heating and cooking is the same asthma risk for a child as passive smoking.

Yes, and it’s amazing that there’s still pushback when we hear that kind of stuff there. But the organisations you’re representing, the big building companies, are they moving to– like most new, for instance, apartment buildings or are they going to build without gas?

So, what we’re seeing is at the leading edge, bleeding edge of office, it’s very unlikely to see anything but electrification in buildings. And partly that relates to Green Star — the rating system that the Green Building Council runs bans gas for world leadership buildings from 2020, Australian excellence buildings from this year, and our best practice standard for new build for 2026. So, we’re kind of going down that stage. What we’re seeing is it’s always been taken up in the upper end of office. We’ve got to spread that message everywhere and that’s why it’s so exciting that the new Powerhouse is all electric and that we’re having community conversations about the change that we need in other spaces. But we’re seeing huge engagement. Frasers right now are building 3400 all-electric apartments, and they’re saying with cars going electric, it’s like the new iPhone. There’s been a technology shift, get with the program. The spaces that we need to work with the community is, if you’re a food retailer that’s been cooking one way for a long time and it’s generational, it’s cultural, it’s in your family, you need to be given a pretty compelling reason to change. And that’s why we need a community campaign talking about why it’s better on the health side, cheaper, better for your family, better for the environment.

Yes, exactly. Let’s stick with that question that came up about the resources of what we’re building buildings with. And I love the fact that you’re an engineer. So, we are going to get into this, it’s great. So, let’s look at you know, you said it’s– all the technological answers are there so–

One scope one and two. Scope three, still a hard place we are unpacking.

So, let’s go to cement production. Do we have the solutions there? Do we have low emissions concrete and cement that are actually hitting the market, that are beyond the kind of theoretical?

So, what’s exciting is we have leading tech in labs at the moment that excites the hell out of us. And we’ve got products we can get now which is so much better. So, I’d say concrete is, you know, globally about 8% of the carbon emissions. It’s going to be one of the heavy areas we have to lift. Now, to the cement industry’s credit, globally, they’re on board, so they’re working through decarbonisation plans. There’s a bunch of things we can do now, but there’s a lot more. So, I’ll give an example on the materials side, we launched with our partners in 2019, a World Green Building Council report saying we really needed to focus on materials, and we need to build a business case for manufacturers to do more. InfraBuild, one of Australia’s largest steel companies, committed to going net zero by 2030 within six weeks.

What about steel you said is a bit more positive there. Green steel obviously we talk about technology, you know, green hydrogen, being able to create steel, moving away from metallurgical coal to do that. Where are we in that journey?

So, I’d say like there’s two halves of the steel market. There’s where you get recycled steel, and you can melt it down. And we can do that all with electric, a lot of that with electric processes and renewables. So, that’s the InfraBuild space and that’s their carbon neutral claim. When you’re on the other side of the equation for virgin steel, you’ve got to be in that green steel, green hydrogen space. And we’re seeing great exemplars in the market. But again, there’s not scale. And so, you know, the first green steel Australian projects, we think we’ll see. They’re doing lots of efficiency stuff now, but the first thing we think we’ll see in green hydrogen, will probably be closer to 2030. So, there’s still these gaps in these complex spaces.

And in terms of– I mean, in Australia, a lot of the building is done by pretty large companies, and particularly when you start talking about skyscrapers, we can probably see just out the window there. What proportion of those companies are part of the Green Building Council, and you know, are on board this journey?.

So, what’s really exciting is, I’d actually say at what we call the commercial property side — so, the investor end, the big end of town — we work with basically everyone. And so, at that big end of town, Australia globally leads. So, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index has been led out of Australia for at least the last 15 years. There’s a global real estate sustainability benchmark called GRESB. Oceania has won that since inception. So, the big end of town we lead the gap is in residential. We don’t work with all the partners there. There is a huge range from big builders to two guys, a dog and a ute. And you know, we haven’t had a change in the code for over 12 years whilst the rest of the world’s moved ahead. And so, there’s this huge opportunity to take what do I see, at the big end of town and set that up so that when I buy a new house, like other developed markets, I know what I’m getting and ideally, it’s comfortable and doesn’t cost the Earth to heat. Or even worse, our most vulnerable families are sitting in what we call energy poverty. They’re suffering.

Well, let’s start with the top end then, who are doing well there. Let’s talk about the Green Star system, that Green Building Council of Australia runs. How has that driven change in that kind of top end? How did it come about? You say it’s voluntary, a word that always– from the waste space, I’m always suspicious of the word voluntary. I’m captain mandatory but tell me how it works.

So, the Green Building Council actually grew out of the Green Olympics, you know, and so everyone was inspired by Sydney Olympics, what was possible. And a consortium of industry got together and then they said, we need to set a standard for better. So, 20 years ago this year, Green Star was born and worked with some of the early projects while we worked out what did it all look like? You know, so iconic buildings from the day, Lend Lease’s The Bond. You know, a lot of these inspirational projects that showed industry what was possible. And so, we’ve partnered with industries. We’ve certified over 3000 projects and the things we work with, they’re as diverse as, you know, the FIFA Women’s World Cup. We’ve been working with the stadiums across Australia and New Zealand. We’re going to work with the Olympics, lots of office buildings. But what’s really– the bit that really excites me is the work we’re starting to do with schools, with [School] Infrastructure New South Wales, you know, all the different asset classes from libraries to all these areas. And how do we work? We work with partners to benchmark better. And you know, for those outside the built environment, we’re a little bit like the Heart Foundation’s tick of approval for people who aren’t property people, ‘How do I know you’re not making it up?’ we have a third-party verified scheme that looks at all the sustainability features and we do lots of consultation, ISO 9001. We put all the important verification elements in so partners can point to a simple metric and talk about better.

Well, what are the kinds of things that when your people are going in or your verifiers are going and looking at a building. What are you looking for? What makes a building more sustainable?

We look at the energy it uses, water, waste, how it incorporates nature. How do you feel being in the space? Is there nice daylight? Do you have access to views of nature? How do you feel and how responsibly has it been built? What have you done with the waste when nobody was looking? Did anyone check where it actually went? Has anyone signed that off? Has anyone checked the sign off. So, you know, the role of third-party verification is to check. You know, everyone has beautiful ideas at the start of a construction project, ‘I’m going to build this and it’s all going to be wonderful’, but, you know, if you sit a uni course and you’re not doing an exam, you have a different level of diligence to if someone’s checking at the end. So, we kind of work with partners to help check that they really do what they say they’re going to do. And so, that’s been one of our roles to partner.

So, what does the rating go up to? What’s the kind of top rate you can get at the moment?

World leadership, six star.

Six stars.

But we change the benchmarks. So, what we do is about every decade we go through a generational review, and we say, ‘What does leadership look like in the next decade?’

What’s the kind of difference in the climate impacts, I guess? You know, this is about climate change. If you’ve got a six-star rated building, how much less kind of energy and impact is that having at a climate level than, say, a two star or something like that?

So, from 2020, if it’s world leadership, it has to be zero scope, one and two. So, a highly efficient building powered by renewables that’s fully electrified, and you have to have done at least 20% better than standard materials before you use offsets. Then you should be using offsets through that process. You should be making a contribution for what you’ve taken out. So, you know, at the moment when we did the rating tool, about 80% of buildings emissions were that scope one and two, they’ve got to be gone and then you’ve got to improve that last hard bit.

So, you need to be 100% renewable energy, for instance.

Yes. Requirement.

Requirement. It’s interesting because you say then you have to offset at the end and obviously there’s been a lot of stories recently about the offsets market and questions about it and it’s about, you know, how legitimate it is at times. And there’s definitely concern about how much we’re relying on that. How much are you trying to move, I guess, people in the building sector away from using offsets?

Our view is you have to do everything first you can do with efficiency. You have to do everything first that you can do with renewables, but they’re well run, well-certified schemes for growing trees — you know, in a gold offset market is pretty well understood. And so, we’re asking people to use well-certified nature-based solutions for the last part. The challenge is there has been some complexity and we dealt deeply into that space, but all the global reports say we need to draw down. It’s a little bit like my son with his homework. If he’d done what I asked him to do at the start of the term project, we wouldn’t be doing it all at the last night. On climate policy if we’d done everything we’re meant to do 20 years ago, we wouldn’t be doing it all now. But because, like my son, we didn’t do it when we were meant to do, now we have to do both. We have to do the efficiency stuff. We have to do the renewable stuff. We have to do climate resilience because the climate is already changing, and we have to look at offset solutions. So, I was with one of our beautiful partners GPT yesterday. They have been buying land, working with Indigenous Elders and Greenfleet for how they’re going to get their own offsets in degenerated areas. We need more of that because the lungs of the Earth need a lot more support and we’ve been going the wrong way on every way you cut that metric.

So, let’s move from, you know, not many of us invested in giant skyscrapers, but let’s move to homes, because obviously that’s the thing that, you know, where you said we’re behind a little bit in particularly in Australia. We’ve seen particularly recently so many stories with prices going up of energy at the moment, so many people live in incredibly inefficient homes, very little insulation. They can’t heat it. It’s terrible situation. How do we change that and how do we bring the Green Star approach into homes as well.

So excitingly, we started working with the volume builders a couple of years ago to say, how do we take these concepts–

So, volume builders are people building enormous– lots of houses.

A bunch of homes.

Not just doing one.

Yes. How do we take these concepts and bring them across a bunch of homes? How do we– we’ve done it in apartments for a while, but how do we do it recognising the market drivers for someone who wants to work in this space. In any market surveying you do of people, they want a home that’s healthier for their family, they want it to be cheaper to run and they want it to walk more lightly on the planet. Usually in that order, you know, in some of the CSIRO studies. And so, we need to be responding to those needs. Now the bit that’s heartbreaking is we’re getting more and more evidence that we’re not doing a great job in it. So, a recent study came out noting that we previously thought about 5% of homes were outside the World Health Organisation comfort level. Turns out it’s over 50% of Australian homes.

And any of these been newly built homes as well? Are we still building homes today that don’t fit within that?

We haven’t changed the code in 12 years for better. So, this is the opportunity space, right? So, all the sophisticated markets set clear what they expect over a period of time. There’s this residential disclosure, so a buyer knows what they’re getting in both new and existing. And in all those markets, we see that the efficient homes are worth more. We get to see that people default less on mortgages if their homes are more efficient. When the cost-of-living pressure’s high, there’s one less pressure.

But I guess I mean, to be devil’s advocate there, people say, but all oh, that’s going to be more expensive to build these things in the first place. You know, and it is interesting how humans, we’re very terrible at looking at long-term aren’t we. We’re like, I’m going to look at the cost of this right now. I’m not going to think about the fact that’s cheaper 10 years down the track, you know. So how do we– is it becoming cheaper to build? Do we need regulations to actually make that happen?

We need both, right? So, the thing that’s really interesting is there’s very few people that when they buy a house, just roll up with cash. You know, they’re usually borrowing.

Yes.

And then their repayments — the way that it works, it’s cheaper from day one because their bills are lower, which makes their repayments cheaper. So, we’ve recently done a study with KPMG and even if you use our Green Star home standard, which is a premium product in the market, it’s about $30,000 and it can save you over eight years in your mortgage, over a 30-year mortgage.

So, it makes so much sense. Again, like as you said, it makes so much sense. It’s ridiculous that we’re not doing it. Are we changing these regulations now? Is the government looking at changing the kind of home codes? Because we’ve had things like BASIX for years and this kind of stuff. But, you know, it is ridiculous. It drives me insane when I drive past certain places being built, new suburbs being built, and it just looks like we’ve learnt nothing in 20 years.

So, in 2022 the energy ministers agreed to make these changes and they are slowly coming into place around the country.

I hate the word slowly.

So, the first of them is due to start October this year and in a couple of states. And then we slowly see them move around and the opportunity is, so in Tasmania they won’t be taken up until at least 2025. The opportunities for Australians to say, ‘I want better and why can’t I have it now?’

A lot of the work the council does is also about education. How do we get people on board with these sustainable goals? How do we shift the culture? You know, there’s sometimes there’s this pushback at a cultural level.

And so, one of the things that I think we’ve got to do is sell is better. You know, one of the big challenges is that the movement to date has appropriately, there’s this challenge where you can’t double the global footprint. And, you know, yes, some of the McMansions have to go, but we’ve got to talk about design quality. There’s these beautiful– Nightingale do these gorgeous, tiny social housing and, well, affordable housing, I should say, where they sell below market rates. But it is the most exquisite apartment you’ve ever seen. And they are so popular that they often have 3000 people on the waiting list. How they sell the apartments is they draw the lucky people’s names out of the bowl. So, what we’ve got to do is sell better wrapped up in sustainability so that there’s an enhanced outcome. And so often when we look at it, the savings are there, it’s better from a community perspective, the health. When you look at the whole of the economy, it’s almost always a saving. But we’ve got to look at what are the tipping points, how do we change the ecosystem so we can get there at scale?

But it’s interesting, you talk about Nightingale there who make the very sustainable apartments, you said there’s 3000 people on a waiting list for that. That seems like you know the market itself should be driving that change. Why is that not being taken up by everyone if that’s that popular?

Well, it’s one of my roles to get that message out there of how popular Nightingale is, and to Nightingale’s credit they’re starting to work with a bunch of other developers and government agencies to share their know-how. You know, so they’ve just done a beautiful project with Renewal SA where they’re starting to actually do less conventional projects and be involved with all of us. And what we’re going to be doing in Green Star apartments, we’re partnering with Nightingale and guess what? It’s going to look a lot like Nightingale.

Obviously on the waste front, I still have a lot of people come up to me and say, the building industry has so much waste in that industry, so much there — what does the circular economy start to look like in building? How real is it? I’ve seen that you guys are pushing for– you said we need imperfect solutions that scale, you know. But is that starting to become a reality? How are we actually dealing with that waste problem and circular economy in building?

So, the piece that I didn’t mention, another challenge is the built environment is responsible for 50% of global materials used and then how that transitions in the waste cycle. And we’ve gotten really good at linear, our procurement is really good at it. And so, you know, the first piece is about how we recycle that waste better. And the council has had a long heritage in this. So, if we invest time and energy and money, there’s a lot of stuff we can do. However, that’s obviously the first step and we need to be focused on circularity. Now circularity is how do we take that linear system and make it into a big, beautiful circle. We used to call it Cradle to Cradle back in the day. So, Dresden Optics is one of my favourite examples where they take ocean plastic, cut it up, 3D printed as glasses, but how do we take that to scale? And the answer is it’s really hard. So, we just partnered with the South Australian Government to look at what do the scale solutions start to look like. Noting that green industry, South Australia’s been a leader in this space for a long time — they had a container deposit scheme in the ’70s. We’re still getting that up in all jurisdictions in Australia and looking at each piece of the puzzle, and I’d have to say that’s the part where we don’t have all the solutions, but it’s part of our role to drive that at scale. So, whether that’s leadership credits in the rating tools we run, working with government partners on what the metrics look like, you know, working with manufacturers about how we drive different pieces of that. So it’s hard, it’s complex, but we need to deal with it right now.

Given how much waste is created when you do knock down a building and put up a new one and do that kind of thing. You know, often you look at the sexy, sustainable building will be this brand-new thing and you’ll go, I want to build this amazing, sustainable home. To what extent is actually just trying to fix up an old place or fix up an old tower in the city, to what extent is that actually the more sustainable option?

It is the more sustainable option. And that translates to AMP’s Quay Quarter Tower that they actually renovated and kept the majority of the building whilst working around. What’s really interesting is in our new versions of Green Star, we’ve up-weighted the points and up-weighted the energy and materials, the embodied carbon, so that you’re a lot better off keeping the old thing and making it new again. But this is the real challenge is of us as a society. I want the thing that’s shiny and new. What about the beautiful thing that we– the old dame that we give re-life to? That’s where we really need to be focused if we’re going to get to the end of this. So, like all of it, as much of it is about an awareness and cultural shift as about the built form technology.

There’s probably a lot of people listening to this who are renting. How do we make it so that landlords, people who own properties, have to actually give the best kind of comforts, the best insulation, the cheapest form of air conditioning to those people that are renting in houses? Is there anything happening that’s going to bring that?

So, I’m seeing a few things at the moment. We are not there and we’re not there as well as other developed countries in this space. So, the first thing is residential disclosure. Why do I know more about the energy that my fridge uses than my house that I’ll own or rent? So, what we’ve seen in places with disclosure is people move to the places that have better efficiency ratings. They don’t want to be cold and uncomfortable and spend a lot of money on these things. So, we see in markets where these exist from overseas to ACT that people move to these places. Another thing that’s being done in ACT, and full credit to Senator Rattenbury, is minimum rental standards. They’re starting to come in in Victoria. We need to set this up so that there isn’t a big divide where the most vulnerable are left behind the longest.

Absolutely, because that’s it, you kind of– it’s interesting that people do move to the better things when you actually have a rating, which is the first step of it, but then it’s like it just leaves the lower part of the market being, you get the rubbish houses. So, how do we bring those up and force that change?

So, the Treasurer announced that we will have a unified disclosure scheme by next year, earlier this year, which is very heartening. But in the budget there was $1 billion set aside for renovation upgrades, which goes to the homeowners, but there were separate funds of money, another $0.6 billion set aside for social housing and incentives for the more vulnerable to make sure we seek to close that gap. So, I work for Evolve Housing. I’m a board director of a social and public housing, not-for-profit, who seeks to be in that gap. And I must say it’s really hard. And when I speak to the residents of Evolve, some of them have been living in their cars before they’ve moved into the apartments. And you’ve got this real challenge of, I want the efficiency to be like up here. How do we justify that in the affordability crisis we’re in, whilst we’re seeing the vulnerable where they are. So, we’ve got this– we’ve got a climate crisis, we’ve got a biodiversity crisis, and we’ve got an affordability crisis, and it’s going to take an ecosystem play to drive that change.

I guess look at this on a global level. You actually said that Australia in some ways is ahead in this space. The Green Building Council of Australia is also part of the World Green Building Council. Are there other countries that are doing this really well that we should look to? What are the cities that we should go to and be like this is our future here. This is where it’s done well.

Look, so I’m on the board of the Green Building Council, recently became the deputy chair. And I must say, you see such a diversity across the 70 Green Building Councils across the globe. Where do I seek inspiration from? If you go to Copenhagen and you look at their cycling infrastructure and you look at the way they wrap that fabric around and you just go, wow. And the innovation we’re seeing in some of those spaces, new regulation in France about the maximum amount of energy they’re allowed to use in buildings and carbon, you know, that is a real exemplar for us. Out of the States, we’re seeing something very different. You know, Biden’s got up an infrastructure– an Inflation Reduction Act, which is all about electrification. So, I think we can look at different jurisdictions for different places. And if you want to look at, California’s incredibly inspiring for me for how they get their networks to work with their building owners to actually drive better. Within Australia, buildings have been the toddler in the grid. You know, we keep putting renewables on and doing weird stuff that breaks the grid. We’re going to have to work as a whole-of-system as we move to far higher renewables. And we’re going to need to, like a band, have buildings play their part to move up and down. If more than 50% of your grid isn’t working with your system — and in Australia, we’ve had far too many conversations on the supply side than the demand side — California’s a great global example of a jurisdiction that’s thinking about those together. The utilities are required to manage the demand side in their mandates as well as the supply side.

For people listening to this who are going, ‘Okay, what can I do in my household, in my community, in my local area?’ What are the kind of changes that can be made there, that can have a powerful impact?

Absolutely. So, if you’re a renter, let’s start there. Switch to green power today, buy renewables. If you have gas and you have people with asthma in your family there is really great solutions that are plug-in — IKEA has a $75 cooker. There are starting to be more options in this space and if possible, depending on relationships, is there a way you can talk to your landlord about the bloody obvious? You know, insulation for me is right up there in the bloody obvious. If you own the place, take on those but then start to look at how can you look at things like insulation at scale. When you’re next doing any kind of upgrade, be it a bathroom or a kitchen, how can you get a little bit better? And next time the hot water system goes bang, do you want a heat pump? They save you two-thirds of the money for just a tiny little bit more. So, there’s a whole wave of options for you. We’re very excited that later this year we’re going to be launching renovators’ guides to help make these things more accessible. And if you’re in strata, there’s no reason why your strata can’t be buying green power. There’s no reason why you can’t make those options available to everyone and try and solve each other’s problems. We’re kind of in it together. How do we make these things work? If there is an engineering reason why your building can’t do that power, how can you work with your council? There’s lots of leading councils out there doing amazing work and we all need to be headed in the same direction.

We’ll look forward to seeing that renovations guide. And as you said, people are keen for these answers, so it’s great that you’re helping getting them out there. Please thank Davina, ladies and gentlemen, that was great. To follow the program online you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And visit the 100 Climate Conversations exhibition or join us for a live recording, go to 100climateconversations.com.

This is a significant new project for the museum and the records of these conversations will form a new climate change archive preserved for future generations in the Powerhouse collection of over 500,000 objects that tell the stories of our time. It is particularly important to First Nations peoples to preserve conversations like this, building on the oral histories and traditions of passing down our knowledges, sciences and innovations which we know allowed our Countries to thrive for tens of thousands of years.