Key resources

- Eligibility criteria

- Green Star certification agreement

 = Green Star certification agreement FAQ 

- Area definition form

Submission pointers and guidance

- General submission pointers

- Guidance - Submitting for Design Review

Submission resources

- Submission templates

- Submission folder structure template

- Submission planner

- Scorecard

- Built streamlining form

Statements

- Modelling producer statement

- Environmental Management Plan Template

- Construction and demolition waste reporting criteria

- Waste contractor disclosure statement

- Waste processing facility - Disclosure statement

Please note that the calculators are available exclusively to Members, Green Star Professionals, and users who have purchased access. To use the calculators, please ensure you are logged in to the website with your eligible account.

If you have already logged in and are still experiencing access issues, require further information, or would like to purchase access to the calculators, please contact the Green Star team.

- Technical question form

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.

All Innovation Challenges should be included within your standard submission, rather than being pre‑submitted separately in advance as is recommended for other Innovation credit submission types. 

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

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.

Submission Guidelines are free for NZGBC members and Green Star Accredited Professionals.

Please login to view, or contact us to purchase a copy