Introduction to Green Star Rating Tools

The New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) is committed to setting standards of best practice and leadership through the development of green building rating tools, so the property industry can apply to have their projects rated according to their building type.

Green Star NZ addresses the needs of specific building types, such as office buildings, industrial buildings and education buildings, in the design phase, and following construction (the Built phase).  The tools assess the environmental impact that is a direct consequence of a buildings site selection, design, construction, and maintenance. The framework has eight separate environmental impact categories plus an innovation category as set out below:

• Management
• Indoor Environment Quality
• Energy
• Transport
• Water
• Materials
• Land Use & Ecology
• Emissions
• Innovation

All of the categories contain credits that address initiatives that improve or have the potential to improve a buildings environmental performance. Points are awarded in each credit for actions that demonstrate the building has met the credits criteria.

A weighting factor is then applied to each category to reflect the overall importance of the environmental issue addressed by the category. These weightings vary between each Green Star tool to reflect the different environmental impacts of each building type.