The New Zealand Green Building Council calls for new buildings to be rid of gas and coal

Tuesday, 24 September 2019

The Government is being urged to eliminate the use of gas and coal in new buildings by toughening the Building Code and to bring in mandatory building energy labels.

The New Zealand Green Building Council, with some 500 members, has thrown down the gauntlet to the Government to make this happen after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave the keynote address to a climate change action summit in the United Nations in New York.

Without these measures it would fail in its pledge to tackle climate change and reach net zero carbon by 2050, council chief executive Andrew Eagles warned.

The council said the Government should set a 10-year timeframe to ensure all new buildings were zero energy under the Building Code by 2030. That could be done in three updates to the Building Code in 2022, 2026 and 2030.

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Energy efficiency labels should be mandatory on existing buildings of more than 1000 square metres, when they were sold or leased, by 2024, the council said.

NZ Green Building Council chief executive Andrew Eagles challenges the Government to toughen the Building Code and eliminate the use of fossil fuels in new buildings.

'Climate change is our greatest challenge. But New Zealand will not achieve the healthier zero carbon future we deserve, unless, together, we mightily curtail emissions from the building and construction sector.'

'If we don't cut these emissions, then the government will fail to achieve its zero carbon goal,' Eagles said.

The Government should take leadership by requiring key government ministries and departments to ensure their buildings were independently checked and verified as sustainable and to slash 'embodied carbon'.

The council said the built environment was responsible for about 20 per cent of New Zealand's carbon emissions.

The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment is housed in 15 Stout Street, in Wellington, an energy efficient building with a 'market leading' rating of 5 stars.

About half of that came from the operation of buildings through the use of electricity and fossil fuels for heating, lighting and ventilation and the rest from 'embodied carbon' emitted during the manufacture and construction of a building and its materials.

'That's why we have identified the significant milestones that the government and industry must achieve to decarbonise New Zealand's buildings.

These include an improved Building Code, significantly increased transparency around the energy efficiency of buildings, and a call for key government ministries and departments to lead a revolutionary shift in green buildings,' Eagles said.

Constructing and renovating New Zealand buildings pumped out climate pollution equivalent to one million cars on the road every year. That meant the Government could not hit its much vaunted zero carbon goal with out tackling emissions from the building and construction sector.

The measures the council proposes are part of 'A Zero Carbon Road Map for Aotearoa's Buildings' launched today in World Green Building Week, a yearly campaign to raise awareness of green buildings.

The council is also launching the first zero carbon certification for buildings in New Zealand, developed in conjunction with Enviro-Mark Solutions.

It is calling on building owners to have their buildings zero carbon by 2030, developers to construct their buildings to zero carbon and 20 per cent less embodied carbon by 2025 and tenants to tell their landlords they will be seeking zero carbon-rated building in their leases by 2025.

It quoted the International Energy Agency (IEA) which said New Zealand's Building Code was well below the standard required in most IEA countries with comparable climates.

It said in the road map report that about a third of the carbon emissions in buildings came from fossil fuels and most of that was from natural gas and LPG, whose use had increased while the use of coal was declining.

To get to net zero carbon by 2050 fossil fuel boilers would have to be replaced with low or zero carbon heat sources like heat pumps and wood-fired boilers and developers would need to choose low-emissions materials for new buildings.

'When all parts of this road map are in place, the building and construction sector will be zero carbon – the greatest achievement ever for this industry, or any industry, in Aotearoa,” Eagles said.