If you still think sustainability and energy efficiency is the domain of greenies, hippies and gurus, you need to do your homework. Melbourne is set to retain the momentum set by February’s Sustainability Festival with the hosting of the Carbon Reduction Conference later this week. But rather than organic yoghurt salesmen or sitar jamming sessions, the conference is featuring some straight out capitalist incentives to begin the sustainable technology refit across Melbourne.
To begin with, the CitySwitch program – a short term, low cost audit of energy efficiency program’s publications feature a plethora of smaller office 5-figure dollar energy savings tenants have made using the program. With electricity timers, the latest redesign of the light bulb and other whizbang gadgets, office energy use is only used when it’s actually being used – not a novel concept, but it’s taken us this long.
With some office buildings in Melbourne playing host to over 6000 employees each day, techniques, gadgets and retrofitting knowledge picked up at the conference could affect more people than it would to green-revolutionise an entire small Australian town.
Of course, all of this is happening in 2010, the year that Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp will reach carbon neutral status. Three years back, Murdoch told his scribes matter-of-factly: “And as many companies have already learned, acting on this issue is simply good business. Reducing our use of energy reduces costs.”
It’s enough to make Michael Douglas’s immortal wall-street bastard Gordon Gekko utter “Green is Good.” After all, it’s only a matter of time before the federal government makes carbon emission disclosure mandatory, why not get aboard now? This new energy is infectious.
You can sign up for the Carbon Reduction Conference here.
