Makao Group

We're a house of engineers and sustainability consultants.

Our interest in the built environment and climate change runs deep.

Big enough to provide you with holistic services in a range of disciplines.

Small enough to give you our undivided attention.

Above all, we're dedicated to helping you achieve your sustainability goals—both social and environmental.

BUT FIRST

What is sustainability, anyway?
Makao subscribes to Herman Daly's principles on sustainability (modified by Donella Meadows).

We see sustainability as a by-product rather than an objective.

• Renewable Resources
  Renewable resources (e.g soil, and groundwater) must be used no faster than the rate at which they regenerate.
• Non-Renewable Resources
  Non-renewable resources (e.g fossil fuels, and minerals) must be used no faster than renewable substitutes for them can be put into place. 
• Water & Pollution
  Pollution and wastes must be emitted no faster than natural systems can absorb them, recycle them, or render them harmless.
• Fairness
  The distribution of capital stocks and resource flows must be fair, not necessarily absolutely equal, but fair. So that every human can have a good life.

An ongoing story about achieving more with less.
We aim to be a company that’s human, respectful, transparent, inclusive, socially and environmentally conscious.

Founded in 2018, our core mission is to help our clients achieve their sustainability goals. To make the transition to sustainable practices simple and stress-free for forward-thinking teams.

To do this, we build long-term partnerships to utilise all our resources and experience to deliver excellence.

What's in a name?

We often get asked why we’re called Makao. Allow me to explain. Makao means home in Swahili. And the word embodies our roots in building residential homes around Melbourne.

Since then, we've taken a broader outlook—extending the idea of home to cover the planet we all live in. For us, sustainability is about putting human needs first, and being respectful of the environment and the limited resources available to us. It's about creating solutions that work today but are also mindful of future generations.

We want to enhance people’s living experience in the built environment. And build a community around everyone that chooses to work with us.

Make sustainability part of your story. Seriously dynamic services for seriously ambitious teams.
Life is too short for low-performance buildings. Our cities and urban centres are changing fast—in both size and speed. And achieving sustainable solutions in our urban environment is a growing challenge. Parallel to this, we're increasingly aware of our impact on our surroundings and scarcity of resources.
To help you navigate the complexity of creating sustainable developments, Makao provides a wide range of services. We want to make this simple as you focus on shaping our built environment.

Everything you need, all in one place

Sustainability Strategy
Energy efficiency, green building design, indoor comfort, and more. We'll advise you on how to embed bring sustainability into your next development. A robust well-integrated framework.

Integrate water sensitive urban design. Explore how you can reduce clean water use and improve storm water quality

Master plans
Together, we'll carefully investigate developing walkable neighbourhoods that create a sense of place, and favour alternative modes of transport.

Develop precinct wide master plans that encourage healthy living and strong urban communities.

Climate change and impact
Create and implement sustainability plans that reduce your carbon emissions. Attain best practice business principles.

Accelerate the transition toward net-zero across your portfolio, project or business operations.

SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS
Before your project begins

Master Planning

• ESD Program Management
• Education precincts
• Residential developments
• Mixed-use projects
• Community centres
• Retail and shopping centres
• Healthcare facilities
• Public sector developments

Sustainability Strategy

• Environmentally sustainable design
• Site selection and assessment
• Impact analysis
• Urban stormwater quality
• Rainwater harvesting
• Green building certification
• Building envelope optimisation

Stormwater management

• Building orientation
• Solar shading
• Natural ventilation
• Night purge studies

PLANNING APPROVAL
Once your concept design is ready—and heading to Council for planning permission

Environmentally Sustainable Developments (ESD)

• BESS and BASIX assessments
• Sustainable Design Assessment (SDA)
• Sustainable Management Plan(SMP)
• Waste Management Plan
• Onsite renewable energy
• NatHERS ratings
• Green Travel Plan

Water sensitive urban design(WSUD)

• STORM assessments
• MUSIC modelling
• Urban stormwater management

Daylight Modelling & Assessment
We use computer simulations to perform building analyses for our clients. From preliminary daylight and solar radiation analysis to exterior views analysis. This process informs the early design and building systems to create comfortable indoor environments.

BUILDING APPROVAL

NCC Section J

• NCC Section J Reports
• JV3 -  Energy modelling
• Thermal comfort
• Verification using a reference building (VURB)

Thermal Performance

• NatHERS energy ratings
• Artificial lighting assessment

Rating Tools

• JV1 - NABERS Commitment Agreement
• JV2 - Green Star

BUILDING PHYSICS MODELLING

Energy Efficiency

• Building fabric optimisation
• Facade and shading analysis
• HVAC optimisation
• Onsite renewable energy
• Battery storage

Indoor Environment Quality

• Daylight access
• Glare analysis
• Thermal comfort simulation
• Computational fluid dynamics
• Artificial lighting

Rating Tools

• Life cycle analysis
• Greenhouse gas emissions

CERTIFICATION MANAGEMENT

Building Design

Our team of sustainability engineers and accredited ESD consultants can help you with:

• Green Star
• WELL Building  Standard
• Living Building Challenge
• Passive House
• Designing for Net Zero

Building Performance

Our team of sustainability engineers and accredited ESD consultants can help you with:

• NABERS ratings
• Green Star - Performance
• Commercial Building Disclosure
• Building Energy Efficiency Certificates (BEEC)
• WELL Building Standard

Plus...

• Net-zero energy, water, and waste

Health and wellness
At Makao, we believe we have a duty to push for new ideas and materials that make our environments healthy. Indoor spaces can contain microbial pathogens, VOCs, and other contaminants that contribute to harmful health outcomes.

When you choose to work with us, Makao, therefore, focuses on the environment from start to finish. We look at fresh air and ventilation effectiveness, pollution source avoidance, filtration strategies, choosing materials free of carcinogens and chemicals of concern, the virus spread prevention cleaning best practices, and construction management policies.

In addition, post-occupancy sensors can keep an eye on important indoor environment quality levels and make sure the air in your home or space is healthy.

Building energy
We are working towards all our projects attaining Net Zero Energy by 2025, or to be ready for Net-Zero.

To meet these goals together, we need to first set a benchmark and then use passive strategies like building fabric, proper orientation, shading, and natural lighting + ventilation to lower our predictive energy use intensity (pEUI)—which is how much energy your building will consume in the future.

Renewable energy systems like solar photovoltaics and solar thermal are used to meet your building's energy needs. For your development, we'll use computational building analysis tools early in the process to improve performance and come up with the best strategies. We will measure, track, and report this data through any relevant certification programmes. The end result of these efforts is a wide range of highly efficient design and system strategies that are tailored to each project and location.

Water conservation
Water is a vital resource—both for humans and the flora and fauna we share the planet with. We, therefore, spend time exploring ways to conserve the clean water that is available, improve the water quality of the water leaving your site, and protect the waterways that flow through or surround our homes and cities. Water sensitive urban design is therefore a core service here at Makao.