Our 2018 Member Survey bagged a much greater response than 2017 with some useful insights and constructive ideas on how to make our buildings better.
Thank you to all who took the time to complete our member survey this year. With a whopping 70% increase in response rate over last year, this year’s survey gives a better indication of our members’ opinions on how we are serving you and where you’d like us to concentrate our resources. The spread across industry groups also represented our membership more exactly.
Congratulations to the winners of the survey spot prize draw. EcoStore gift pack went to Matt Wilson of Eco Insite, Greig Blackler of BlackYARD Engineering, Jeff Fahrensohn and Toto Vu-Duc of Auckland Council and David Bullock of Dimond. The B&O Beolit speaker system was won by Ben Hudson of Warren & Mahoney, Queenstown.
Here’s a summary of survey replies.
How do you connect with us?
Yay. While almost 70% of respondents said they had come to at least one NZGBC event in the past year, nearly 80% regularly read the member news, and added some useful ideas on what they would like to read more about.
Reasons for joining NZGBC
Not much change here. Top four reasons are still:
- Support the movement for better buildings.
- Support and or demonstrate sustainability leadership.
- Networking and marketing opportunities
- Access information and resources about Green Star.
What do you think of our tools?
Homestar – over 60% of respondents working in the residential sector, said they were happy with changes to Homestar released in June 2017, with 30% requesting more information on the subject
Green Star – 50% of respondents were very satisfied or satisfied with the tool, with 37% neutral on the subject. …. It seems we have some work to do in this area.
But, over 75% of respondents agree or strongly agree Rating tools are fundamental to improving the sustainability of buildings in the future.
How we should increase the number of ratings?
The general feeling was that NZGBC should: run wider campaigns; improve tools and make them simpler and cheaper; broaden the tool offering to include a wider variety of buildings.
How do we rate at HQ?
It seems that we’re not too bad. Satisfaction was a little higher than last year with 78% of respondents satisfied or very satisfied with NZGBC – an encouraging 16% increase in those who are very satisfied with our service.
You liked that we are:
- Leading by example and with a strong voice
- More professional and commercially pragmatic than previously
- Good at holding summits and events
- Improving our tools
- Advocating
- Showing leadership with practical tools and training programmes
But suggested we need to work on:
- More case studies (real ROI case studies too)
- Promotion of best practice and people in the industry
- More advocacy
- Consumer and tenant marketing
- A forum for discussion
“NZGBC's voice isn't loud enough in the wider community”
Have perceptions changed in the wider market since 2017?
The top two barriers to sustainable building were way ahead of the rest and remain unchanged:
- Too much focus on costs over benefits
- Minimum building code requirements are a barrier to sustainability
Now perceived less of a barrier:
- Perception of complexity (reduced from 10% to 3%)
- Lack of commitment to quality (reduced from 7% to 4%)
Looking to the future
Over the next few years you’d like to see NZGBC:
- Advocate for policy changes to enable delivery or more green buildings and homes (a huge 90% requesting increase in advocacy and influencing)
- Increase consumer awareness
- Educate property sector of sustainability issues
The most important shifts you’d like within the next decade:
- Increased focus on whole of life costs and building performance
- Incentives for better building (up by 8%)
- More focus on wellbeing (up by 4%)
- Better standard for NZ homes (down by 7%, dropped from 2nd to 4th place)
Greatest impact on New Zealand designs in the future were felt to be - same order but some percentages have changed:
- Innovation
- Climate change (up 4%)
- Availability of land (down 6%)
- Cost of utility
- Changes in demographics
The Member Survey provides a good check for us to see that our membership approves of our approach. We also talk to as many of you and non-members as we can during the year to build up as clear a picture as we can of market opinion to pick the best way forward.
The call for Advocacy is still loud and clear, and we are diligently working at this. Not just meeting with government and government agencies, but also local government, delivery agencies, and large corporations too. Part of this conversation is around incentives and where appropriate, legislation. It’s encouraging to have a government with an expressed interest in the sustainable future of the country. We are confident that our insight and solutions will create more sustainable outcomes on a much wider scale than seen before.
Whole of life cost is an important topic for us and is included in both Homestar and Green Star tools. Increasing numbers of our members supply products with Environmental Product Declarations, and the soon to be released and updated Value Case for Building Green will provide data and arguments around the importance of including ongoing and end-of-life costs into building cost calculations.
There is increasing interest in wellbeing in relation to the built environment. Green Star and Homestar both excel in this area without losing sight of other environmental benefits provided by the rating tools. We are working with health providers and researchers around this topic.
Our new business plan also revolves around consumer awareness, an area that we have been re-examining in detail. Of course we will continue to support industry and most of all our loyal members.
Thank you again for your valuable input and your kind expressions of support!
“I've been really impressed with the changes in the NZGBC over the last 18 months or so, particularly the frank and helpful approach that is taken to assist organisations like ours that are looking to strengthen our commitment to green buildings.”
“As an investor who maintains a keen interest in sustainability and building efficiency initiatives the NZGBC is our go to source for information in this regard”
“I’ve moved from a fence sitter to a fan”