Westfield Hurstville leads the way on water, waste and energy reductions

The Westfield Hurstville facilities management team was able to significantly improve the environmental performance of the centre - including increasing its NABERS rating - after the commissioning of a state-of-the-art Building Management System.

The new system allowed far greater control and the granular tuning of equipment for energy reduction, improved equipment performance and, importantly, an improved internal environment for customers, retailers and employees.

“For a 40-year-old building this is a huge achievement and reflects the successful implementation of our new Building Management System,” says Westfield Hurstville Facilities Manager, Anthony Pantilas.

With the centre operating seven days a week, there were challenges with performing largescale upgrades but with detailed strategic planning, thorough intelligence gathering, and much of the work being undertaken at night in a staged manner, Anthony says he is thrilled with how the new system is performing.

“It is fantastic. We can now use live data to assess outside air conditions and determine whether we can use air rather than running chillers,” he says.

The more ambient centre environment is being thoroughly enjoyed by the centre’s employees, retailers and customers. “We have seen a dramatic decrease in customer and retailer feedback regarding temperature, particularly on those 37-degree plus days,” Anthony says.

Other initiatives include fine-tuning the major plant equipment to reduce water consumption of cooling towers, fitting water-efficient appliances in bathrooms, and replacing all internal legacy lighting with energy-efficient LEDs.

“We expect the LEDs to consume less than a third of the energy required by the legacy system and they will also last much longer,” he continues.

The savings are considerable. In the 2018 calendar year the team saw an 11.2% reduction in energy and 7.7% water consumption on 2017 results, and in 2019 this was reduced by a further 4% and 7%, respectively.
“I’m very proud of the savings we’ve made so far and we haven’t finished yet,” he says.

L-R: The Westfield Hurstville team - Marcus Taylor, Fred Kak, Anthony Pantilas and Anthony Daniel.

In addition to energy and water reductions, Westfield Hurstville also made great headway in waste management during 2019, with the Facilities Management team working incredibly hard to instil a mindset of collective responsibility across the centre and with retail partners.

“The results are nothing short of amazing. We have diverted 49% of our waste from landfill with 39% of that being recycled completely. This includes 500 tonnes of cardboard, 29 tonnes of co-mingled, 14 tonnes of cooking oil and, my personal favourite, 200 tonnes of organics which are now in the process of being transformed into high-quality compost and mulch.”

Talking to the achievements at the centre, Anthony says he is proud to work for an organisation that is taking its commitment to being a responsible, sustainable business so seriously.

“It not only saves us money, but it is 100% the right thing to do.”