Victorian Premier John Brumby and Environment Minister Gavin Jennings launch BIBG from Flowerdale

 

On Friday 23rd April, 2010, Victorian Premier John Brumby and Environment Minister Gavin Jennings announced that they share our sustainable futures vision for communities affected by Black Saturday. Green Cross Australia is a proud recipient of a $177,000 grant the Victorian Government Sustainability Fund to kick-start BIBG from a base in Flowerdale.

 

The grant will fund development of a comprehensive green building guide and a "Build it back green" (BIBG) website that provides practical multi-media based post-disaster rebuilding information and tools including trade videos that address the nitty-gritty building challenges these communities are confronting.
The site will include a corporate volunteering portal as well.

 

BIBG online will use Web 2.0 tools enabling people across Victoria to follow/share/upload and comment via Facebook and Twitter. A live Twitter feed will encourage development of a regional green building dialogue and will be used to let people know where green building talks occur once these are up and running.


 
The BIBG online journey will be integrated into the terrific existing Flowerdale community led "Build it back" website which front ends sustainable rebuilding onto a more comprehensive recovery journey.

 

The BIBG website will become the online hub for BIBG, providing access to the tools and community resources that residents need.

 

REGISTER YOUR INTEREST IN GETTING INVOLVED HERE

 

BIBG Partners

 

BIBG web resources will include comprehensive green solutions and rebate information developed by Alternative Technology Association, Australia's leading community sustainable solutions provider. 

 

The Victorian Branch of the Electrical Trades Union hopes to enable its members from Black Saturday affected areas to become "Global Green Electrician" accredited, so they can build sustainable local businesses as renewable energy and energy efficiency become mainstream options for participating households. 

 

Flowerdale's new Green Building Resource Centre (funded by the Federal Jobs Fund) will showcase a wide range of green products and service and will be available to thousands of impacted residents, as well as visitors to the area.

 

Community planning support will be provided to assist with integrated sustainable water, waste and energy solutions.

 

Once the website is live, our partners Australian Conservation Foundation and Alternative Technology Association aim to launch a widespread community talks program that will reach out into Kinglake, Marysville and other affected townships from a Flowerdale base to bring green tools, stories, inspiration and information to the neighborhood level.

 

Monica Richter from the Australian Conservation Foundation says, "Our collaboration aims to support a lasting shift toward sustainable community adaption and resilience well into the future".

 

Already Flowerdale has traction with weed eradication and organic farming, and many other environmental activities will blossom as recovery proceeds.

 

Green Cross is working with Victorian agencies to enable Habitat for Humanity Australia to work with an army of volunteers to build thirty affordable sustainable homes supporting low income bushfire affected residents using a sweat equity model. 

 

Green Building Council of Australia will encourage the large staff pool of its 700 national corporate members from the property development and building sector to volunteer on the ground, building new homes and sustainable community infrastructure.

Romilly Madew CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia says: "GBCA will target all its members and affiliated industries to assist in the volunteer program. The aim of this program is to provide individuals and companies the opportunity to assist on the ground, within the bushfire regions."

We are raising funds to support a research team from the CSIRO to assist residents to make material and product choices that are resilient to bushfire risk but also have strong environmental performance.

"ECO-RESILIENCE," says CSIRO Climate Adaption Flagship Director Andrew Ash, "is all about smart climate change adaptation, and will create exciting 21st century intellectual property."

 

Our vision and targets

 

BIBG partners hope to be a source of green jobs, advice, leadership, practical tools and capacity to assist Victorian communities to transition and emerge as the cohesive, healthy, thriving and, now resilient, communities they once were.

It is our aim that a minimum of 400 households will be supported to increase their eco-resilience with innovative hazard reducing materials, technologies and practices, while reducing their greenhouse emissions by 10 tonnes per annum.

 

We also believe that the BIBG initiative will give Black Saturday affected communities an opportunity to inspire and galvanise the rest of Victoria. 

Media out of the BIBG New Orleans project has made our efforts there visible right across the US, and through the BIBG website, information and tools will be available for all Victorians who are inspired to renovate and build new homes using cutting edge green building approaches.

 

"After Hurricane Katrina flattened New Orleans exactly four years ago, on Aug. 29, 2005, the city emerged as an inadvertent symbol of global warming, the first American victim of climate change. More than 200,000 homes were destroyed during the Category 5 hurricane. But in the years since, the Crescent City has quietly embraced a new and unexpected role as a laboratory for green building. Sustainable-development groups like the international nonprofit Global Green [Green Cross Australia's US affiliate] as well as earth-friendly celebrities like Brad Pitt descended on New Orleans, determined not just to build the city back but to build it back green. "It's going to come back," says Matt Petersen, the president of Global Green USA. "But we want to build it better than it was before."    Time Magazine