University of Wollongong joins Low Carbon Living CRC

The University of Wollongong’s (UOW) Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC) will become a research participant in the Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living (CRCLCL), joining a two-year project that will help provide community and public housing providers with the tools and knowledge to make retrofits that improve sustainability and liveability.

Low Carbon Living CRC Chair Robert Hill AC said SBRC’s work is a perfect fit with the CRC’s programs, noting, “UOW’s Sustainable Buildings Research Centre has been a leader in developing and applying new products and services in low-carbon community housing.

“Community housing is a particularly challenging part of reducing carbon in the built environment because of pressure on costs,” said Hill. “It is also a large housing stock and thus very relevant to Australia’s overall carbon reduction challenge.

“UOW has contributed its research expertise in close collaboration with industry. It has addressed both new housing stock and retrofits. UOW is therefore a good fit for the CRCLCL.”

The SBRC researchers, with $473,477 in CRCLCL support and $50,000 from the Office of Environment and Heritage, will develop a project called ‘Mainstreaming Low Carbon Retrofits in Community Housing’. SBRC Director Professor Paul Cooper said the project will assist community and public housing providers in integrating low-carbon retrofits and refurbishments into their property maintenance and upgrading processes.

“Unlike owner-occupied buildings, the large stock of social and community housing is managed through a centralised process,” Professor Cooper said.

“Our team will establish living laboratories in Port Kembla, south-west Sydney and the NSW Central West, where the performance of existing stock and the impact of retrofits and upgrades will be assessed and where the new decision-support resources, tools and processes will be tested and refined.

“By directly engaging with providers, we believe this project has the potential to make a significant impact in mainstreaming low-carbon technologies, systems and processes.”

UOW joins five other partner universities and 48 industry and government participants in the CRC’s mission to lower carbon emissions in the Australian built environment and deliver competitive advantage for industry.