About Green Star

Rating Tools for Commercial Buildings

NZGBC is committed to setting standards of best practice and leadership through the development of environmental tools for buildings in New Zealand. Green Star is a comprehensive, national, voluntary environmental rating scheme that evaluates the environmental attributes of New Zealand's buildings using a suite of rating tool kits developed to be applicable to different building types and function.

The tools are developed by the NZGBC in partnership with the building industry to:

• Establish a common language and standard of measurement for green buildings
• Promote integrated, whole-building design
• Raise awareness of green building benefits
• Recognise environmental leadership
• Reduce the environmental impact of development.

The Green Star suite of rating tools was designed to match the key phases in a building life cycle:

Design > Built

The tools address the needs of specific building types, such as office buildings, industrial buildings and education buildings, in the design phase and following construction, in the Built phase. 

The current tools assess the environmental impact that is a direct consequence of a building's site selection, design, construction, and maintenance. The framework has eight separate environmental impact categories plus an innovation category.

Credits are awarded within each of the categories based on the building's environmental merits in a range of areas and they take into consideration the unique development requirements and impacts of each sector.  Points are then weighted and an overall score is calculated, determining the project's Green Star rating.

Possible Ratings

• 4 Star Green Star Certified Rating (score 45-59) signifies 'Best Practice'
• 5 Star Green Star Certified Rating (score 60-74) signifies 'New Zealand Excellence'
• 6 Star Green Star Certified Rating (score 75-100) signifies 'World Leadership'

> Performance (NABERSNZ)

Now that Design and Built tools are available for these building types, we are focusing on developing a an energy performance tool for commercial office buildings.

NZGBC is working closely with EECA Business to launch an energy performance assessment tool for commercial office buildings. National Australian Built Environment Rating Scheme (NABERS) is an Australian building assessment tool that has been adapted to meet New Zealand needs. Here it will be called NABERS NZ. It will give whole building, base building and tenancy ratings. A website and marketing programme is currently in development with a view to launching the final tool in March 2013 – there will be early adoption opportunities in terms of piloting (testing the tool) between now and then.

NABERS NZ will be offered by the NZGBC to help tenants and owners rate and compare the energy performance of their existing commercial office buildings. It will complement the Green Star suite of tools that rate and benchmark buildings at the design and construction phases.