Brisbane: A disrupted green building trajectory

Brisbane in Australia is not a renowned city for green building and sustainability. While Sydney and Melbourne both enjoy international recognition for their sustainability efforts, Brisbane has struggled to keep up with green innovations in the building sector and rarely catches the attention of green building practitioners and researchers. Despite its current struggles, Brisbane looks back to relatively early greening initiatives including research and experimentation with alternative solar energy technologies. During the 1990s, the city defined ambitious goals for climate change mitigation, but the following decades have been marked by changes in political prioritisation and agenda setting. This chapter traces developments in green building in Brisbane since the 1960s, which are characterised by discontinuity and hence highlight the importance of the spatial context of green building transitions. Green building in Brisbane provides valuable insights into what can happen in the face of policy roll back at different spatial scales. The lack of political support for green building has been partially filled by private investors for the commercial sector, but recent solitary not-for-profit projects focused on affordable and social housing also provide niches for green building innovations.