It might be a short month, but the opportunities to connect with you and our community have been far from in short supply. In what I hope establishes a trend for the year, February has been full of meaningful engagements and exciting developments.
In Wellington, I had the pleasure of catching up with many of you, meeting with several members and officials. Among the highlights was visiting the capital buildings and presenting 6 Star Green Star certificates to the team behind the impressive new parliament buildings.
Last week, I was in Christchurch, connecting with more members and visiting four different developers all building to low carbon, healthier standards. The progress and innovation happening throughout the country is tremendous, and it's clear that our collective efforts are making a significant impact.
Looking ahead, we have an event coming up in Hamilton. This will be a fantastic opportunity to connect if you’re in the Waikato region. f you're in the area do come along, network, and hear about the latest in property performance. We're busy planning our next event in Christchurch this June - watch this space.
Closer to home, our team gathered for our regular strategy day to kickstart the year. It’s always refreshing to hear everyone's ideas, align our goals, and ensure we’re working effectively towards ambitious outcomes. There’s some were exciting projects in the pipeline. The central focus of our work aligns with World GBC goals of climate action & resilience, resources and circularity, health and wellbeing.
We are delighted to see community housing providers, retirement villages, build to rent providers and home builders taking up Homestar at scale. Certification is increasingly being used to secure massive savings through green finance. The discussion around the motu is moving from the great health benefits of better homes to include the financial benefits for development finance and mortgages.
There'll be a chance to hear more about those opportunities, as well as from the International Energy Agency and rock star international experts presenting at the Housing Summit in May. The summit sells out each year, so make sure you get in quick (and make the most of early bird pricing). You can get your tickets here
We've received fantastic support on our draft H1 submission to the government. Since we have launched more associations and groups have joined us in supporting our recommendations. Particularly, we believe there's an opportunity to go further, and support efforts to tackle the growing issue of overheating homes. Families are experiencing very high temperatures and significant discomfort in new build homes, and unfortunately these issues are set to worsen. There is no requirement in the Building Code to check at the design stage if new homes are likely to overheat. We're calling for modelling, and a check at the build stage to ensure housing designs do not overheat. The NZ Construction Industry Council, BRANZ, NZ Institute of Architects, Architecture Designers Association, Community Housing Association, Eco Designers and many others support this call also.
It's likely to be many years before there is another opportunity to improve this part of the building code. If you haven't already, make sure you get your submission in by the end of the week. Our submission and a summary cover letter, are here. Feel free to have a read and use it for your submission.
Thank you for your ongoing support and dedication. Together, we are making a difference and driving positive change in the building industry.