News Limited's New Green Buildings:
News Limited has invested over $2 billion in new administration, editorial and printing facilities across Australia over the last twenty years. In all of these facilities environment has featured as a design consideration, nowhere more so than in our most recent buildings for News Digital Media, Leader Newspapers and the Adelaide Advertiser, detailed below.
Some initiatives include the following:
Print Centres: Modern technology
Our print centres in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Townsville and the Gold Coast have been designed from the ground up to be some of the most environmentally responsible in the world.
Some of the significant environmental advances incorporated in the operation of the new facilities include:
• Process colour inks have low rub-off qualities, but are readily de-inkable for recycling
• The amount of black ink used has dropped by more than a third due to a more advanced formulation
• The presses are designed to be able to use newsprint with a basis weight of 45 grams per square metre, down from the usual 48.8 grams. This drop of almost 8 per cent, represents a saving in paper, but also an environmental and cost saving in almost all areas related to transport
• A major effort has been made in the design of the plants to reduce newsprint waste from handling damage. Over the last decade waste due to damage in transit and handling has been reduced from a few percent, to virtually zero. Major innovations such as vacuum handling of newsprint reels, rolling floors on trucks and reel transports and improved wrapping have all helped.
• The new Baldwin press cleaning systems now installed at the Herald and Weekly Times, Nationwide News, Queensland Newspapers, Townsville Bulletin and Gold Coast Print Centres provides the most environmentally responsible mechanism for cleaning presses yet available to us. Although the cost is many millions of dollars it almost eliminates the use of hydrocarbon "blanket wash" solvents. Typically, a press clean up would have used some 3 litres or so of solvent. Now, the new system uses only a cloth pre-moistened with a very safe wash fluid and only about 40 litres of cleaning fluid are used per press unit each year. The cleaning fluid is an environmentally responsible product. It is safe and is readily biodegradable by OECD criteria (Test method: OECD 301F/ ISO 940). It does not significantly accumulate in organisms.
• The new Baldwin Press cleaning system uses a fibre cloth made of wood pulp fibres (55%) and polyethylene terephthalate (polyester, 45%). Toxicity details for the cloth show no problems. Saline and cottonseed oil extracts of the cloth showed no toxicity.
• Where possible, solvents and other on-press waste are recycled in-house with new technology that reduces liquid waste by more than 97 per cent of its original volume. Similarly, some of the photochemical recycling units that we have installed at some sites reduce chemical usage by 70-85%.
• Creating new markets for old newspapers is an important way to advance recycling of old newspapers and the new facilities are playing their part. More than 70% of the newsprint we use has a recycled fibre content of between 20-55%.
Green Building: Keith Murdoch House in Adelaide
Advertiser Newspapers – Green building initiatives
Advertiser Newspapers Pty Ltd has completed one of Australia’s top green buildings as its administrative and editorial headquarters. The aim is to create a showcase of energy and water efficiency which will be responsive to human requirements and emit minimum levels of carbon dioxide in its operation. Attention will be focused on the quality of the internal environment while the building itself is designed to enhance the streetscape.
The following are some of the features built into the design:
Energy efficiency
• Building facades have double glazing to north, east and west that decreases energy consumption
• Fully shaded North facing façade
• Roof insulation
• Internal drapes
• Ventilated glazed façade on the north side, effectively a third layer of glass
• High efficiency T5 tri-phosphor fluorescent tubes with electronic ballasts will provide energy efficient lighting. Additional efficiency is to be achieved by zoned BMS control with over-ride switches for outside normal hours operation of lighting.
• Solar hot water system with natural gas boosting to provide high efficiency hot water to the building facilities
• Provision of power factor correction equipment
Air conditioning
• BESTEC accredited engineers have applied Greenstar principles to the design of the air-conditioning system.
• Air conditioning components selected using “whole of life”, also known as lifecycle, selection criteria with long life and high efficiency used as primary considerations
• Reduction in air conditioning capacity requirements due to the energy efficiencies built into the building design
• Flexible smart “zoned” air conditioning
• Economy cycle utilizing “100% fresh air” operation to provide automatic free cooling when ambient conditions allow
• Low velocity air distribution systems to reduce fan energy use.
• Reduction in energy usage by controlling fresh air intake to match building occupancy requirements determined using carbon dioxide monitoring
• Elimination of Legionella risks due to use of a high efficiency air conditioning system that does away with water cooling towers which can be contaminated by disease causing bacteria and yet has minimised disadvantage in energy consumption which would typically be expected with such an outcome
• Software strategies to efficiently control chilled water temperature scheduling and load shedding to minimise energy use
• Environmentally responsible refrigerants (R407c and R134e proposed)
• Large surface area filtration is incorporated in the air conditioning system to reduce air flow resistance and increase efficiency.
Building Services
• Fully automated computer controlled building services
• State of the art Building Management Systems controlling operation/fault monitoring and recording. BMS will control lighting on/off and heating. It is totally programmable and site adjustable.
• The latest new generation lift services which incorporate compact energy efficient gearless “machineroomless” lifts and provide for lower operating costs. This technology sees the lift engines located on the lift cars doing away with large plant rooms that need to be located on the top of buildings.
• Metering on all systems and water devices
• High efficiency helical Rotary Chillers
Water
• Rainwater is collected in rainwater tanks with a mains water backup system to provide water to all toilets
• Taps will have AAAA rated flow restrictors
• Dual flush cisterns
• Sub water metering linked to the BMS
• No water cooling towers
• Water Efficient plants will be in the roof garden
Pollution
• No CFC/HCFC blown insulation
• Light pollution controlled
• No cooling towers
• Ozone friendly refrigerants