Key resources

- Eligibility criteria

- Green Star certification agreement

- Area definition form

- Brand guidelines

Submission pointers and guidance

- General submission pointers

- Guidance - Submitting for Design Review

- FAQs

Submission resources

- Submission templates (.zip file)

- Submission folder structure

- Submission planner

- Scorecard

- Built streamlining form

Statements

- Modelling producer statement

- Construction and demolition waste reporting criteria

- Waste contractor disclosure statement

- Waste Processing Facility disclosure statement

Projects may use the new Operational Waste Calculator v1.0 for Design & As Built projects. You can find the calculator, and calculator guide here

Credit 12 - Visual comfort

 - Daylight and views hand calculation guide

Credit 15 & 16 - Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Peak Electricity Demand Reduction 

- Calculator guide 

- GHG Emissions calculator

- Shared services and low-carbon energy supply assessment guide

Credit 17 - Sustainable Transport

- 17A - Performance Pathway calculator guide

-17A calculator

- 17B - Prescriptive Pathway calculator guide

- 17B calculator

Credit 18 - Potable water

- Calculator guide

- Calculator

Credit 19

Embodied Carbon

- Calculator guide

- Methodology

- Embodied Carbon Calculator

Please note, Microsoft often blocks macros on downloaded documents. In order to access the full calculator functionality macros needs to be enabled. Macros and adding the document as a trusted file can be done when the document is first downloaded or through the file's security properties. Find out more here

Life cycle impacts

- Calculator guide

- Calculator

Credit 21

Sustainable Products Calculator v1.1

Credit 23 - Ecological value

- Calculator

Credit 28 - Refrigerant impacts

 - Calculator

- Technical Question form

- Technical Clarification rulings

Updated December 2024

Green Star recognises innovation and efforts to carve out new ways of building sustainably. Often these sit outside the current benchmarks laid out in the tool, however points are awarded under a separate 'Innovation' credit. This recognises new initiates with a significant sustainability benefit.

Each project can submit up to 10 innovations to be considered for approval, for a maximum of 10 points towards a Green Star rating.

If you have an idea for an innovation in your project, we encourage you to talk to us as early in the process as possible.

How to claim Innovations

1. After reviewing the section for Innovation in the Green Star Submission Guidelines (Available to members and Green Star professionals below), your Green Star Accredited Professional will then need to register a project’s interest in targeting an Innovation with the NZGBC.

2. You will then need to submit a completed Innovation submission using the template below. This outlines the initiative, its sustainability benefits and relevance in New Zealand.

3. Documentation will then need to be submitted for assessment after registration but before Round Two).

Project teams can provide partial documents or full documents in a 'Pre-Round One' or 'Pre-Round Two' review for each proposed innovation. If the innovation is granted conditionally pending further documentation, all the remaining documents need to be provided in either Round One or Round Two assessment. Innovations can't be targeted after Round Two.

Innovation Challenges

In addition to innovations claimed by projects, both Green Star and Homestar have published a list of innovation challenges. These recognise initiatives that don’t currently fit in to the main framework of these tools but that we believe are important to encourage and recognise. They cover environmental, social and economic sustainability initiatives. While some challenges only apply to some tools, others across all our tools. Several current innovation challenges were originally published by the Green Building Council of Australia for Green Star projects there, but have been adapted for Green Star and Homestar projects in New Zealand.

Table of Innovation Challenges

You are welcome to submit a new challenge relating to sustainability issues you would like to address

Submission Template 

The submission template is developed to assist your project with an innovation submission – these will be submitted to us by your Green Star Accredited Professional (GSAP)

Download submission template

Example submissions

These submissions, from NZGBC’s own office fit-out, will give you an idea of what NZGBC expects.

Exceeding IEQ-C credit template and submission documents

Beyond Green Star 

Financial Transparency Disclosure Template

- Download

Additional Guidance for Universal Design Innovation

Using sustainable building products and materials is a great way to reduce our footprint, but which ones are best?

Similar to how we advocate independent certification like Green Star and Homestar as a way of verifying whether things are done right, we encourage the use of independent assessments of products and materials by third parties such as Environmental Choice New Zealand, Green Tag, and EPD Australasia.

We do not test, review, or provide eco-label certification for products and materials ourselves. Instead we use authoritative third party certification bodies and eco-labels, and incentivise the use of products that have undergone these assessment by awarding points towards a Green Star rating.

Products recognised in Green Star

• Eco-label certified materials and products
• Products with Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
• Reused materials
• Materials with high recycled content
• Responsibly sourced materials with certifiable stewardship programmes
• Low emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC)

- NZGBC approved eco-labels

We're happy to work with any of our members to help communicate how their products fit within Green Star. We'd encourage product and material suppliers to get certified under one of our approved eco-labels or generate an Environment Product Declaration.

Mixed-use

This guide addresses the alignment of rating levels within mixed-use building
projects looking to target both Green Star D&AB NZ v1.1 (including NZ v1.1.1)
and Homestar v5. It presents the association between the different tool
credits and provides guidance on which requirements need to be applied
where and identifies where pre-defined innovations can and cannot be
applied.

- Download guidance

Industrial

This guidance document, Green Star – Design & As Built NZ v1.1 Guidance for Industrial Projects is for all involved in industrial projects including buildings owners, Green Star Accredited Professionals, contractors and suppliers.

- Download guidance

Healthcare 

The purpose of this guide is to provide
additional information to help buildings such as public and private hospitals, and aged care facilities where substantial care is delivered target a Green Star – Design & As Built NZ v1.1 rating.

- Download guidance 

Fitout Scope: Guidance for Integrated, Cold Shell and Warm Shell Fitouts

This document is designed to provide guidance to project teams where part 
or all of the primary and secondary areas in a building are being delivered as Integrated Fitout or Cold Shell.

- Download guidance

NZGBC Members and Green Star Accredited Professionals can access the Submission Guidelines for free. 

For Non-members the Submission Guidelines for any NZGBC tool costs $600+ GST.

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