FM JUNE | JULY 2011www.fmmagazine.com.au

NDY SUPPORTS GREEN STAR – PERFORMANCELeading consulting and engineering fi rm

Norman Disney and Young (NDY) has thrown

its support behind the Green Building Council

of Australia’s (GBCA’s) new Green Star –

Performance rating tool.

As reported in the last issue of Facility

Management, the GBCA is currently developing

a new Green Star rating tool, known as Green

Star – Performance, which will be used to

assess the operational performance of existing

buildings. A pilot version of the tool should be

ready for use within 18 months.

NDY is the fi rst sponsor of the tool.

According to the GBCA’s chief executive,

Romilly Madew, the ‘silver’ sponsor status

reinforces NDY’s international reputation as

a leader in sustainable building practices.

“NDY’s expertise and experience will be

essential in helping us to identify best practice

operational procedures and benchmarks for

existing buildings and develop a holistic rating

tool that incorporates all Green Star categories

into one rating,” Madew says.

NDY director and sustainability champion

James Redwood says: “Existing buildings

represent the single biggest opportunity

to reduce the environmental impact from

the built environment. The link between

commissioning, tuning, operations and

management has been somewhat missing

from industry discussion. This performance

tool is a real opportunity to bring those

infl uences together.”

The GBCA expects the Green Star –

Performance assessment methodology will

be particularly useful for facilities managers,

building owners, portfolio managers and

governments, as well as investors, building

occupants and consultants.

“We commend NDY for supporting the

Green Star - Performance project,” Madew

adds. “NDY is determined to ‘walk its talk’,

having been awarded Green Star – Interiors

v1.1 ratings for its offi ces in Melbourne and

Canberra, and has just recently achieved

a 6 Star Green Star – Education Design v1

certifi ed rating for the Australian Institute

of Management Stage 3 project in Perth.

The current Green Star tools have created a

common language for green building design

and construction and we envision Green

Star – Performance as the tool that will create

a common language for green building

operations.”

NDY was awarded 88 credit points for

every credit targeted on the project – well

above the 75 points required for a 6 Star

building – plus one innovation point for the

project’s acoustic design.

“NDY is proud of its market-leading

position in sustainable building, and we

are pleased to support the development of

this new rating tool, which will help us to

assess the performance of our Green Star-

designed buildings in operation, as well as

providing an opportunity for our clients that

do not have Green Star-designed buildings

to start their Green Star path,” Redwood

concludes.

The Green Star – Performance scoping

paper can be downloaded from the GBCA

website: www.gbca.org.au/performance

GBCA

www.gbca.org.au

NDY

www.ndy.com

CABLING CHALLENGENational engineering and sustainability

consultancy Umow Lai has taken on one of its

biggest professional challenges: providing the

fi bre optic cable infrastructure and range of

services for a development that is the size of a

mini suburb in Melbourne’s CBD.

Known as Upper West Side, the massive

development includes 2700 apartments being

built on the site of the former Lonsdale Street

power station that borders Spencer Street.

Andrew Oxley, who is heading Umow Lai’s

project team, stresses that the fi rm is up to the

task of providing the infrastructure for a project

of such an enormous size.

“We will be supplying fi bre optic cables

for each and every one of the 2700

apartments,” he says. “This is quite a feat, even

more so because it’s a fi rst for a project of this

size in Australia.”

Also noteworthy is the fact that the most

up-to-date ‘fi bre to the home’ (FttH) technology

has been designed for the occupiers of each and

every Upper West Side apartment.

Umow Lai

www.umowlai.com.au

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