New standard protects environment

A University of Queensland researcher has helped pave the way for environmentally sensitive tourism infrastructure.

UQ director Associate Professor Dr Richard Hyde recently unveiled the results of three years research into sustainable building design.

Funded by the CRC for Sustainable Tourism, and working with colleagues from the University of New South Wales, the research aimed to tackle the problem of unsustainable tourism development.

Green Globe, an international certification company for sustainable tourism, has adopted the research as part of its Design and Construct Standard.

Dr Hyde said this was the first Design and Construct Standard in Australia that dealt specifically with tourism infrastructure.

“This standard is very important because the tourism industry is becoming more concerned about sustaining the environment on which they base its industry,” Dr Hyde said.

“It would be a contradiction for the tourism industry to use the environment while not sustaining it,” he said.

As part of a pilot project, the new standard was applied to the redevelopment of UQ’s Heron Island Research Station.

At a recent Royal Australian Institute of Architects function, UQ Property and Facilities site planner Ross Meakin and Dimitriou Architects and Interior Designers architect Alan Jordan were awarded the Green Globe certification for the Heron Island Research Station.

“This is a landmark for UQ as it is their first building project to attempt to comprehensively address sustainability issues in what is the fragile environment of the reef,” Dr Hyde said.

“At Heron Island they did not want to damage the environment they were researching, so they took a bold step and adopted this standard,” he said.

The standard is based around the Agenda 21 environmental principles, which were developed during the Rio Earth summit in 1992.

By working through these principles, Dr Hyde’s team was able to develop a checklist of design issues. These included: design approach, siting, energy efficiency, building materials and construction.

The Centre for Sustainable Design at UQ hopes to run a course about this new standard later this year.

Media: For further information contact Dr Richard Hyde (telephone 07 3365 3878) or Green Globe CEO Cathy Parsons (telephone 02 6257 9102).