Innovation Credits Awards Process

Introducing a great new change to Innovation credits awards process!

We have responded to the feedback that we received when reviewing the Office Design v1 tool, and are now providing the opportunity for all registered projects to apply for Innovation credits prior to final certification being achieved. 

Innovation credits can now be awarded at any time after the project is formally registered for a Green Star rating. This will provide greater certainty to projects seeking to include innovative technologies, design and processes within their building.

The costs won’t change - two rounds of assessment of the Innovation credits are currently included in the base certification fee. However should a project wish to have further Innovation submissions assessed a fee of $400.00 per innovation will be charged.

To provide certainty to projects seeking to include innovative technologies, design and processes, Innovation credits can be awarded prior to final certification being achieved. Project teams may submit innovation credits at any stage once the project has been formally registered.

 

What’s Innovative?

The Innovation category is included as a way of encouraging, recognising and rewarding the spread of innovative technologies, designs and processes for building applications that exceed Green Star NZ requirements.

There are three different Innovation Credits (for full details please refer to the Green Star Technical Manuals):

INN-1 Innovative Strategies and Technologies

  • Points are awarded where it is demonstrated that an innovative strategy or technology in the building has a significant quantified environmental benefit to the project and the New Zealand building industry.
  • Does the application have systematic investigative and experimental activities?
  • Does the application demonstrate that systematic, investigative and experimental activities were undertaken as part of the innovation?
  • Are high levels of technical risk associated with it?
  • Does the application demonstrate that high levels of technical risk were associated with the innovation for the purposes of acquiring new knowledge (whether or not for a specific technical purpose) or creating a new or improved material, product, device, process or service?
  • Agree that the last bullet point in the manual is covered in the first bullet point above.

INN-2 Exceeding Green Star Benchmarks

  • Points are awarded where it is demonstrated that an existing Credit Criteria benchmark is exceeded by a significant margin and there is additional commensurate environmental benefit.

INN-3 Environmental Design Initiatives

  • Points are awarded where it is demonstrated that a design feature provides a significant quantifiable environmental benefit that is not awarded points under other credits within the Green Star tool
  • Points are awarded where it is demonstrated that an innovation provides a significant quantified environmental benefit that is not awarded points under other Credits within the Green Star NZ Tool that the project is registered under.

 

How many strategies, technologies or design features may I submit?

There is no limit to the number of “innovations” a project may submit. However in order to be assessed, all must have adequate supporting documentation, which includes the quantification calculations of the environmental benefits of the technology or strategy.

There are a maximum of five innovation points available, and the points may be awarded for one or more “innovations” in one or more innovation credit. For example a project may be awarded two points for one innovation under INN-2, or alternatively one point each for three different innovations under INN-1, INN-2 and INN-3.

All Innovation credits are assessed by independent Green Star NZ Assessors, who make a recommendation to the Board of Directors of the NZGBC.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Under INN-1, can each strategy, technology or design feature only be awarded points once i.e. only for one project?

No. Assessors will be looking for evidence that the strategy or technology has high levels of systematic, investigative and experimental activities, or that there are high levels of technical risk associated, and that it provides significant environmental benefits. Each strategy, technology or design feature will be assessed on its own merits against this criteria, and in the specific context of the project’s scale, purpose, client-type, user-type, location, etc. These factors mean that while some strategies, technologies and design features may only meet the criteria once for New Zealand, many will be rewarded more than once due to the unique nature of the project context.

Which Innovation Credit do I submit under?

Project teams are encouraged to read the Aims of the three Innovation Credits carefully to see which Credit is the most applicable to their particular innovation.

What information do I need to provide with my Innovation Submission?

The Assessors assess each innovation against the Compliance Requirements of the particular Innovation Credit. Therefore it is the responsibility of project teams to submit all of the information asked for in these Compliance Requirements. In particular, the demonstration of the innovation as embedded within the relevant contract documents and that the environmental benefits resulting from the innovation are quantified.