I attended the NZGBC Green Property Summit this month. Several presentations stood out. The first was by Sam Archer, who spoke immediately before the Minister of Climate Change—Sam sure put that opportunity to address the minister to good use. He was quite blunt about the missed opportunity for the building sector to contribute to our internationally agreed CO2 reduction and the lack of vision (and detail) in the current government’s policies.
The Emissions Reduction Plan prepared by the previous government had an entire chapter on the building sector and outlined a series of changes including changes to the Building Code. By contrast, the plan sent out for consultation by the current government has just a single paragraph on buildings.
This slide from Sam’s presentation shows the woeful lack of progress: the large graph shows gross emissions from residential and commercial buildings, 1990-2022. That graph is heading in the wrong direction.
Changes the NZGBC is promoting, outlined in the slide below and detailed in its publication Closing the Gap, are estimated to deliver 11% of the total national reduction required to meet the country’s commitment, Sam said. New Zealand is way behind other jurisdictions in regards to these types of programmes. He finished by adding it’s not just about carbon emissions reductions: what about warmer, drier buildings that cost less to run and improve the health of the New Zealanders who live, study and work in them? I hope the Hon. Simon Watts was taking notes.
“Missed Opportunity: one of Sam Archer’s slides
There were excellent people on the embodied carbon panel, which made for a very interesting session. There were two takeaways for me in particular, the first being a welcome focus on publishing EPDs. When these vital datasheets are siloed in academia, the rest of us can’t easily use them. Once the technical experts have done the hard yards and produced a reviewed EPD, publishing that information allows building designers and energy modellers to easily compare different material options and levels of specification. (I wrote more about EPDs and their importance in this technical article.)
The recommendation to focus on exploring different options early in the design stage was the other big point to take away. I agree entirely (my team built our own program so we could compare options very quickly and cheaply at the initial design phase). Get a crude model set up as soon as possible to show the big impacts of different design choices so you can use data to guide the big early decisions! Without the relevant EPDs, it’s impossible to calculate.
I liked Phoebe Moses’ phrase, “science-aligned targets”, with regard to setting carbon emissions. Make decisions and set goals based on what science shows, don’t just guess. To hit the carbon reduction targets New Zealand has committed to, Phoebe says the building sector must reduce embodied carbon emissions by fully half by 2030. That is really significant. (It also supports the approach BRANZ has taken.)
Green Star Champions 2024, among them Jason Quinn (third from right in the back row).
I was also among a bunch of folk recognised as Green Star Champions this year, which was nice. [Editor’s note: Jason has a long history with NZGBC; he’s been on the Expert Reference Panel for Greenstar since 2020 and a Green Star assessor for longer than that. He was very involved with the development of Homestar V4 and V5 and developed the first version of ECCHO for NZGBC.]
It was a great opportunity to catch up in person with clients and fellow building science geeks. Here I am with Dr Damiloju Adeyina, NZGBC’s Technical Manager – Residential.
