Improving buildings could help NZ slash emissions

Friday, 17 May 2024

Improving building standards, and making buildings more energy efficient will reduce emissions equivalent to taking half the country’s petrol cars off the road, the Green Building Council says.

More action is needed to achieve the country’s emissions targets, according to recent advice from the Climate Change Commission.

It estimated that “meeting the second emissions budget will require 20,700 kilotonnes (kt) of emissions reductions in addition to the policies and measures already in place”.

But a new report from the council suggests that building and housing policy could play an important part in meeting emissions goals.

The building and construction sector is responsible for over 15% of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Green Building Council chief executive Andrew Eagles said that meant buildings offered a massive opportunity to slash emissions while also helping reduce costs for families and businesses.

While emissions from the sector were gradually reducing, without faster emissions reductions the country would not be able to meet its emissions targets, he said.

“The Emissions Trading Scheme alone will not effectively drive change in emissions from the sector due to split incentive problems and the capital costs of retrofitting existing homes, so other policies are needed to support it.”

To that end, the report proposed a set of policies to improve the emissions performance and energy efficiency of buildings.

It said that together the policies could reduce the country’s emissions by 6100kt between 2026 and 2030, which would significantly close the gap between its emissions goals and its current path.

Emissions savings would continue to accumulate beyond 2030, delivering 93,000kt of savings by 2050, it said.

One of the proposals was the phased improvement of the Building Code to reduce operational and upfront emissions from residential and commercial buildings, and to align it with the Zero Carbon Act.

The second proposal was a requirement that all homes put up for sale or rent should have an energy performance certificate by 2028, and all office buildings over 1000m² for sale or lease should have a Nabers NZ certificate from 2026.

The final proposal was to phase out the use of fossil gas in homes and commercial buildings. That could involve actions such as ending new residential fossil gas connections from 2026, and subsidising 10% of commercial buildings a year to electrify from 2026.

Eagles said these policies would reduce emissions equivalent to taking 600,000 cars off the road in the next five years, and that was a third of the reductions the country needed.

The policies would come at little-to-no cost to the Government, as the report found the emissions saved by introducing the policies could be worth between $19 billion and $39b by 2050, he said.

“Without real, emission-busting policies like the ones we’re proposing, we will have no choice but to pay billions of taxpayer dollars for international carbon offsets, effectively funding other countries to reduce emissions.”

New Zealand was bound by international law, enforceable through the new EU Free Trade Agreement, to meet its emissions reductions under the Paris Agreement, he said.

“We can’t afford inaction. Not progressing sensible, evidence-backed policy will have major costs for New Zealanders and the planet.

“We lag behind on this as most OECD countries took these steps decades ago.

“For example, energy efficiency modelling when designing buildings has been done in the UK since 2006, and Nabers certification has been mandatory in Australia since 2008.”

Eagles said the policies would also encourage the building of more energy-efficient, healthier homes, ease pressure on the national electricity grid and reduce people’s power bills.

Some forward-thinking residential developers were doing this already by building to the Homestar system, which rates the health, efficiency, and sustainability of homes, and there had also been a rise in the amount of green star rated commercial buildings, he said.

Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk said he met with the Green Building Council regularly, and they shared the goal of exploring ways to lower emissions across the building and construction sector.

“The Government is considering policy options to help address New Zealand’s climate change obligations in addition to the extensive work underway to make it easier and cheaper to build homes in New Zealand so we can rebuild the economy and lower the cost of living.”

Building costs had increased by around 41% since Covid-19 and any changes must not add unreasonable costs onto builders or homeowners, he said.

“I look forward to working with the Green Building Council and other stakeholders in the coming months.”