Office 2009 Green Star Rating Tool

The Green Star Office 2009 Design and Built rating tool evaluates the environmental initiatives and/or the potential environmental impact of new, existing and refurbished office buildings.

The expanded tool will now help building owners measure their building and any improvements to it on a consistent scale with new buildings. It provides owners with guidance and opportunities when developing their building upgrade plans and aims to maximise the efficiency of buildings while minimising environmental impacts.

This tool aims to give existing buildings an opportunity to be recognised for implementing sustainable design features as they go through their 7 – 10 year refurbishment cycle. It will also offer buildings the chance to examine where they can make minor improvements to achieve a rating.

The Office 2009 tool is an improvement on the first Green Star rating tool, Office Design & Built v1, which was launched in New Zealand in 2007.

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply for certification under the Green Star – Office 2009 tool, the building must meet the following criteria:

1. Eighty percent or more of the building’s total assessable area must be intended for office purposes.
2. The Green Star - Office 2009 rating tool assesses buildings in their entirety. It is not suitable for the assessment of building components.
3. The building must be visually identifiable from surrounding buildings in order to differentiate buildings that are Green Star certified and those that are not.
4. The following three conditional requirements must be achieved:
   • The building must achieve an energy use of less than 105kWh/m2 (exclusive of office lighting energy consumption and tenant small power consumption)
   • The building must meet the New Zealand Building Code base ventilation rates
   • New-build projects may not be built on land of high ecological value (as defined in ECO-1 'Ecological Value of Site' credit).
5. If the project is going for a certified Built rating, a certificate of practical completion must be submitted prior to assessment.
6. The building must achieve a minimum Green Star - Office 2009 score of 45 in self-assessment

Technical Manuals

A Technical Manual for the Green Star Office 2009 rating tool is available in either hard or soft copy.