The National Trust has called upon the State Government to meaningfully include heritage considerations in the new Plan for Victoria.

“Older buildings are not environmentally sustainable – we need more energy efficient new buildings”

False. Our built environment is currently the world’s single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It consumes around 33% of our water and generates between 33% and 40% of our waste. As much as 25% of Australia’s carbon emissions come from buildings. However, energy efficiency schemes frequently ignore embodied energy, but the energy embodied in existing Australian buildings represents 10 years of energy consumption for the entire country.  ‘Demolishing an existing building and replacing it with a new one will increase carbon emissions by 2050’ is the summary conclusion of the 2020 English report, ‘Know your home, know your carbon’. (Why Heritage, 2023)

Heritage, and in particular heritage conservation, is an inherently sustainable practice and the adage, “The greenest building, is the one that is already built” has been proven to be true. It is now well established that investment in materials and the embodied energy of existing buildings generally emits less emissions than demolition and new construction, and the conservation of landscapes protects trees and plants that sequester carbon and provide crucial habitats to support biodiversity.

Climate change is one of the most urgent policy drivers for our time. Despite evidence for the role of cultural heritage in decarbonisation, reducing waste and ecosystem resilience/ biodiversity, the role of cultural heritage is often overlooked in key policies which prevents the benefits of caring for cultural heritage from being realised. It also leads to a risk of ‘maladaptation’ as policies designed to deliver wider benefits fail to do so, because for example traditional knowledge has been lost or ignored. This is a significant research topic that needs a collaborative approach to identify the work currently taking place across universities in the natural and built environment sectors, and to make the connection between that and cultural heritage initiatives. It also involves moving the debate from a narrow focus on how to retrofit listed heritage items to the bigger question of how doing more to conserve, repair, mend and adapt what we have now (whether protected or not) can contribute to addressing climate breakdown. (Why Heritage, 2023)

Additionally, the ongoing maintenance and redevelopment of existing buildings has been proven to provide sustainable employment opportunities and economic benefits. ‘In Victoria for example, alterations and refurbishment of existing residential buildings represent around 16% of construction activity’ (Why Heritage, 2023). The ‘reuse first’ approach that heritage conservation naturally incorporates is an essential mindset for policy, development and investment decision-making as we combat the climate crisis. However, we are yet to see the State Government truly back this data and put it into action.

The Victorian Housing Statement framework places significant emphasis on new builds, but it is incentives for adaptive reuse and retrofitting of existing building stock that will be essential in the fight against Climate Change. While the National Trust successfully recommended use of existing building stock be included as objectives in the State Government Built Environment Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan 2022–2026, we’ve seen the opposite to be the case.

For example, the philosophy behind plans in Victoria’s Housing Statement to demolish 44 high-rise public housing towers across Melbourne and rebuild in their place is unsustainable both from a climate change, and community wellbeing perspective. Rather than an immediate response to demolish and rebuild, options to retrofit and refurbish the towers should be meaningfully explored, especially considering the social significance many of these buildings possess to their communities. For example, Department of Transport and Planning’s (DTP) Land and Property Group has recently applied for a Ministerial Permit to demolish all but the façade at the Victorian Government owned Former Taxation Office. Supporting documentation submitted by the DTP claims it was determined refurbishment of the building as office space was not viable due to a lack of interest from potential users. However the National Trust has not been satisfied that adaptive reuse to convert the existing building into a residential property was meaningfully explored by the State Government.

There has also been a severe reduction in State Government funding to support conservation with the discontinuation of the Living Heritage Grants Program, which demonstrated how investment in restoration leads to positive heritage, economic, and social outcomes.

Working with existing buildings and fabric requires a problem-solving design process that fosters innovation, and the past holds many of the answers to how we should build in the future for climate resilience and lower energy consumption. The expertise of heritage professionals, particularly traditional trades’ people to repair and retrofit built structures is an asset for the resilience of heritage and non-heritage buildings alike. The education of our practitioners to work with existing built fabric and environmental infrastructure through traditional techniques, would provide vital and existing solutions to the presenting problems.

Furthermore, traditional and vernacular buildings are living artefacts, providing examples of (now ‘alternative’) uses of materials and methods which can reduce embodied energy in building construction such as the use of calcium oxide as a binder instead of carbon-producing cement, or how to build thermal mass in a building without using cement. Their continued existence and resilience mean that they are time-proven and can be tested and measured for reference in performance standards or incorporated into modern standards.

Passive climatic features are present in many heritage places, such as period homes with verandahs, light-coloured pitched roofs, thick walls and proportionally large established gardens that provide shade, insulation, wildlife habitat, and carbon dioxide and water absorption capacity.

Despite the potential for reuse, retrofitting, and restoration to inspire innovation and provide both positive heritage and environmental outcomes, there are few incentives in place to encourage this. Indeed, the opposite is true—a culture of knock-down/rebuild is being fostered by government policies which incentivise new construction. This may provide short-term economic benefits, but it is an unsustainable practice resulting in long-term environmental impacts and adding to the destruction of heritage places valued by communities. When adapted our existing buildings could provide more long-term housing faster than new builds that may only have a short life span.

Working with existing structures may look like a constraint best eliminated by virtue of it making spaces more responsive to existing community needs, character and values. However, even beyond the considerations of the short- or long-term lifespan of built structures, developing more spaces does not mean that they will be occupied, utilised as designed, or be tenanted long term. Indeed, a focus on long term occupancy and attracting new people to communities should be paramount in any public good driven development, and utilising heritage values helps to achieve this.

The National Trust is encouraging the State Government to meaningfully explore a system of planning policy that requires an investigation of the reuse of an existing building before demolition is approved. Not only will this support efforts to stop land banking by property owners and the resulting increase in land prices, but it would also encourage sustainable investment in existing building stock that is more climate conscious.