Alumni event highlights importance of sustainability

Faculty of Science and Technology

In late October, the Faculty of Science and Technology held an Alumni cocktail party at the RACV Club in Melbourne as part of DeakinWeek 2008. Chair in Property and Real Estate, Professor Richard Reed, delivered a speech called Combating Climate Change: Is property and the built environment the missing link? which looked at the relationship between sustainability and value for residential property.

Professor Reed said the economic market meltdown is threatening the push for more sustainability – particularly in property – with everybody turning their attention to the bottom line.

‘It is clear that sustainability has already been removed from the front page of the newspapers and replaced with the economic downturn…this has widespread implications for society’s perception about the importance of sustainability when compared to financial returns,’ he said.

Professor Reed said from the perspective of the average homeowner, this turn in economic events means it will be less likely that money will be spent on making their homes greener. From an investor point of view, the news for sustainability was also bad with people looking for short-term financial gains rather than long-term benefits.

However he stressed that both investors and home-owners should remember that property does hold value over the long-term.

Chair in Property and Real Estate, Professor Richard Reed and Deputy Dean of the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Professor Christopher Gray.