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CIBSE president David Hughes gives a follow-up report on his visit to Australia with a focus on current Australian building services issues and developments.

As I detailed in my first report, I recently spoke at the 2006 Air Conditioning, Refrigeration & ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Services exhibition in Sydney, where there was great interest in climate change and in reducing carbon emissions attributable to our buildings.

At the exhibition itself, product development was a hot topic and apparent on many of the stands. We saw participation from China and other Asian powerhouse economies whose economically priced output is beginning to dominate the Australian M&E market. With a population of 20 million, home-based manufacturing is proving difficult to sustain. However, the economy is vibrant due to an abundant supply of raw materials available to feed the tiger economies to the north.

As we have found out in the UK, our friends in Australia and New Zealand are having to manufacture where labour is cheaper to survive and to add value by being innovative in product design and development.

It was fascinating to see that as in the UK, the ability to measure energy consumed in sufficient detail to make the results meaningful is of equal importance. Therefore operational ratings are also the name of the game in Australia. The Australian ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Greenhouse Rating System was the initial rating tool that focused on benchmarking energy performance. The country has also seen the launch of the National Australian Built Environment Rating System indicators. These cover air quality, waste management and building management practices. Parallels were immediately apparent between the content of my presentation of the European experience and the approach being taken in Australia.

The engineering world is certainly becoming more international, and it’s good to see that we at CIBSE, through our staff and regions, are at the forefront of the debate on the issues that affect us all.