Following months of consultation with industry, engagement with advisory committees and GBCA, New Zealand Green Building Council has shared its first draft of its Green Star Buildings NZ.
Due to be introduced next year, and to replace the current Green Star Design & As Built certification from mid-2025, Green Star Buildings NZ sets a new benchmark for sustainable commercial buildings.
New Zealand Green Building Council says its goals are:
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For Green Star Buildings NZ to extend beyond traditional measures of environmental sustainability, recognising social and strong governance initiatives from property and building owners, contractors and developers, and their wider project teams.
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The resulting certification process to be a refreshing, responsible approach to evaluating the holistic impact of a project on community, place, and people, including health and wellbeing, and end to end supply chains.
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Green Star Buildings to also align with leading frameworks. This will ensure it responds to 12 out of 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommendations on the built environment, and reporting frameworks such as the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) and the Taskforce for Climate Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD).
The current version of Green Star Design & As Built NZ v1.1 includes an embodied carbon conditional requirement, supported by an embodied carbon calculator. Design & As Built NZ v1.1 also lifted the operational carbon credit to support the step change to Green Star Buildings NZ. Projects designed under Green Star Buildings NZ will meet the requirements for Climate Positive outlined in the new tool.
