According to Romilly Madew, the chief executive of the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), a longer-term strategic approach to urban planning is required if Australia is to successfully meet the challenges of climate change, productivity, population growth, housing affordability and sustainability.
"We hope this new strategic planning system will deliver better outcomes across cities, where we not only address climate change, but also face up to a future nation which will be home to more than 35 million people by 2049.
"With that in mind, we must look at how we manage our precious resources, minimise our environmental footprint and create cities that are healthy, liveable places that address community needs well into the future," Madew says.
The GBCA is currently working on the development of a sustainable precinct framework that will establish an independent, national language to guide the development of sustainable communities.
"Our precincts framework will provide valuable support for the federal government's sustainable cities agenda," Madew explains.
"There is a real need for frameworks, models, tools and case studies that promote the delivery of new sustainable communities and the revitalisation and retrofitting of existing ones, and we look forward to working with the Australian Government to support its capital city planning initiative," Madew concludes.
The GBCA is also collaborating on two projects focused on developing sustainable cities. Madew chairs the Australian Sustainable Built Environment's Constructing Cities for the Future taskgroup which is considering the complex interaction between the factors that shape urban land use, transport services and greenhouse gas emissions.
Madew is also on the Built Environment Meets Parliament (BEMP) committee which released a discussion paper, Principles for planning sustainable communities, at this year's event