Application Of Wastewater Treatment In Sustainable

Introduction

Corporate Social Responsible is the way of organisations accepting the responsibility it has towards the environment and the society, the resources that an organisation use in order to achieve the objectives of the business are dependent on the aspects that are often neglected. The focus of growth and development of the company is the focus, yet it is important to understand the duties an organisation has towards the People and the planet.

The concept of triple bottom line is coined by John Elkington in 1994. It is a framework that business organisation to develop a sustainable business model. It is an accounting framework that helps the company focus on the three Ps: Price, Planet and People. It challenges the traditional business idea of focusing just on the development of the company.

Based in Perth, Western Australia, Unos Property Development has been operating in the construction industry for 35 years. Over the years the company has gained reputation in the industry as well as among the stakeholders. The company has been engaged in both commercial and residential properties. However, the goodwill has seen a setback as the company has not been observing sustainable building procedure.

The purposes of the report are as follows:

• To provide the company with Water efficient recommendation
• To provide the company with Energy efficient recommendation
• To help the company with the Perth Skies Development project

Findings & Discussions

According to Rashidi et al. (2015), as more and more the concept of sustainability is gaining popularity and people are accepting the responsibility they have towards the environment and the society there has been an improved. Thus giving rise to the concept of green buildings, it mitigates helps in dealing with the negative aspects of these buildings and supports the natural environment. Energy conservation and water efficiency are two most important aspects of green buildings. There are various tools to recognise the efficiency of the green buildings some of the features considered are: their design, construction, operation and maintenance in terms of their support to sustainability. In Australia Green Building Council of Australia Green Star (GBCA, Australia) is one of the leading green building assessment tools (Zuo and Zhao 2014). In order to analyse the technical aspects of green buildings the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach is popular in Australia (Zuo and Zhao 2014). Rashidi et al. (2015), suggest that the analysis of the green building evaluation tools it has been highlighted that energy and water efficiency are considered to be the most important elements.

In Australia there are water restrictions in most of the cities and this has led to households being more focused on water conservation and efficiency. Use of water efficient appliances and fixtures, Grey water reuse, rainwater harvesting and stormwater use are some of the regularly used methods in the Australian household (Byrne et al. 2014). On the other hand, Rashidi et al. (2015), waste water treatment is one of the most important ways to conserve water and they suggest that Hybrid membrane treatment technologies have gained significance in household and municipal water treatment procedures, MRB being the most common.

Focus on energy efficiency

McGee (2013), State that though there has been a continuous conscious use of energy efficiency measures and mitigation procedure, the increasing population and the rising use of fossil fuel is increasing the greenhouse gas emission. According to the Department of the Environment and Energy website, about 20% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions is emitted by the Australian households. This can be reduced with the help of proper designing and construction elements in the household, increased use of energy efficient technologies and being more responsible towards energy conservation, incorporating the use of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind in the house hold. Berry et al. (2014), examines the state government project in Adelaide, South Australia. They show that the project focuses on the energy and the water management as well as emphasis on the importance of monitoring the sustainability. On the other hand the concept of green roof is discussed by Castleton et al. (2010), reactive cooling method that prevents the solar radiation from reaching the building. In these buildings the roofs are fully or partly covered with a layer of vegetation which is called green roof. One of the major benefits of the construction is that it helps in the reduction of carbon emission and also cools the house therefore reducing the use of the cooling systems. Some of the advantage of the process in energy conservation is that the addition of a green roof to a building can recover or improve the insulation features of the infrastructure, therefore reduce annual energy consumption. The green roof adds thermal mass which helps in maintaining a stable temperature all year around (Castleton et al. 2010). Another way in which the green roof is energy efficient is that it does not cool the interior by making the outside warm, like air conditioning machines, the green roof does not let the heat to build up.

Conclusion

The following recommendation can be concluded form the above discussion which might be useful for the company to achieve the objective of attaining sustainability of the project in terms of water and energy efficiency are:

• Use of Mains Water Neutral Gardening model in order to improve the water efficiency
• Certification of Council of Australia Green Star (GBCA)
• Rainwater harvesting, solar panels installations in the complex in order to ensure renewable activities
• Installation of Municipal hybrid membrane treatment plant in a complex in order makes the residency more energy and water efficient at once.
• Use of only energy efficient technologies
• Focus on reduction of carbon emission
• Construction of green roof

Reference List

Berry, S., Whaley, D., Davidson, K. and Saman, W., 2014. Do the numbers stack up? Lessons from a zero carbon housing estate. Renewable Energy, 67, pp.80-89.

Byrne, J., Dallas, S. and Newman, P., 2014. Optimising Residential Water Efficiency–The Josh’s House Project. In Oz Water’14 Conference proceedings. Australian Water Association.

Castleton, H.F., Stovin, V., Beck, S.B. and Davison, J.B., 2010. Green roofs; building energy savings and the potential for retrofit. Energy and buildings, 42(10), pp.1582-1591.

McGee, C. (2013). Energy | YourHome. [online] Yourhome.gov.au. Available at: https://www.yourhome.gov.au/energy [Accessed 27 May 2018].

Rashidi, H., GhaffarianHoseini, A., GhaffarianHoseini, A., Sulaiman, N.M.N., Tookey, J. and Hashim, N.A., 2015. Application of wastewater treatment in sustainable design of green built environments: A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 49, pp.845-856.

Zuo, J. and Zhao, Z.Y., 2014. Green building research–current status and future agenda: A review. Renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 30, pp.271-281.