The construction of ‘green buildings’ is promoted by industry organisations and professional bodies as a means of increasing the sustainability of cities. 'Green building' certification schemes and regulatory requirements address many challenges related to waste management, resource consumption, operational efficiency and life cycle performance. Less embraced in current practice is the notion of ‘designing out waste’ or ‘zero waste’ in our buildings and cities. This paper discusses research from an ARC funded project that is investigating ways to minimise waste from building conception to end of life. The aim is to understand how building procurement teams (clients, architects, designers, and planners, engineers, building contractors, facility managers and users) might move towards international best practice and total waste elimination. The project methodology incorporates a series of charrettes to develop, reflect on and refine a best practice model of designing, constructing and managing a zero waste building. This paper discusses outcomes from the first of four charrettes, which asked the building procurement team of a world leading ‘green building’ to reflect on their own perceptions and experiences in relation to managing waste. Importantly, the charrette unpacked the participants understanding of waste and their professional and personal role in its generation. Participants were also asked to envisage a ‘zero waste’ solution for future development of sustainable buildings. Knowledge gained from the analysis of data from this charrette will inform future stages of this project and provide a framework for the understanding of waste in the design and construction of sustainable built environments.

•

The State of Australian Cities (SOAC) national conferences have been held biennially since 2003 to support interdisciplinary policy-related urban research.

This paper was presented at SOAC 6, held in Sydney from 26-29 November 2013.

SOAC 6 was the largest conference to date, with over 180 papers published in collected proceedings. All papers presented at the SOAC 2013 have been subject to a double blind refereeing process and have been reviewed by at least two referees. In particular, the review process assessed each paper in terms of its policy relevance and the contribution to the conceptual or empirical understanding of Australian cities.