The Cape: 2021 Winner – Climate action
The Cape is the Industry Leader award winner in the Premier's Sustainability Awards 2021 – Climate action category. The Cape – Climate Action
The Cape set out to demonstrate that sustainable, resilient housing can be beautiful, affordable, and economically viable. They applied best practice sustainable urban design to transform a previously cleared cattle farm into a thriving biodiversity site.
The Cape was inspired by the realisation that the Australian housing sector is building homes and communities that have a significant negative impact on Australia’s carbon footprint.
The Cape models sustainable food and transport, with a community farm accommodating several hundred members, and kilometres of cycling and walking trails to encourage active lifestyles. The Cape mandates homes are built with energy and water-efficient design, rainwater harvesting, solar energy, energy monitoring, and household electric vehicle charging as standard.
The Cape has built an estate where homes are in energy surplus, have year-round comfort, and are healthy and resilient in heatwaves. In a national first, all homes across the estate are currently averaging over 8-star NatHERS energy efficiency.
Their free net-zero house designs have been downloaded over 40,000 times by the public from The Cape’s website.
