Kia ora koutou,
This time last month I was standing by, waiting to see what the Government’s Budget would deliver for our sector, and included the usual mix of wins and misses. Now the focus is shifting to elections policies, as parties begin to set out their positions on energy and resilience.
It’s encouraging to see growing recognition across the political spectrum that warmer, healthier homes should be part of that conversation. We welcomed last week’s news of the National Party’s Home Energy Fund as a step towards modernising and strengthening our energy system. It shouldn’t be controversial or political to take simple steps to make our homes and buildings warmer, electric and more efficient.
I’m hoping to see similar commitments from all our political leaders to these relatively low cost interventions that work well elsewhere.
See more from our 2026 Manifesto here
Property Council awards recognise Green Star and Homestar
Congratulations to all of the winners at the Property Council’s Property Industry awards. It’s always great to see Green Star and Homestar projects, recognised by others in the industry.
The new home of the Tauranga City Council – Maraenui with its 6-Star Star Green Star Design rating won the supreme award and recognised as the largest mass timber office building in Aotearoa
Read more here
Other Green Star and Homestar winners included the archives building in Wellington and IKEA’s Auckland store and the Homestar certified ‘Our Whare Our Fale’ in Wellington won the Community and Affordable Housing Property Award.
Green Star and Homestar are standards the sector created to help ensure quality efficient healthy buildings are delivered at the construction stage. Hundreds of people have put aroha and time into these standards over many years. It is great to see them mentioned at awards nights and to see the resulting final buildings often up on slides and appreciated.
New energy use in home research released
Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ)’s HEEP2 research into residential temperatures released last week found that New Zealand homes have become warmer by 2.6–3.5°C since the early 2000s.
Some key points:
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Interventions work – healthy homes standard and warmer Kiwi homes programme. Let’s embolden Governments to continue to support improvement of our building stock.
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Building to higher than the building code delivers healthier homes. This is great. In depth research shows it makes sense to choose better. Choose Homestar.
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We still have a long way to go - over 40 percent of bedrooms are still below 16 degrees. That is too cold. it is alarming the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme is for the chop. Let’s aim to keep it or reinvigorate it with something even better.
Our homes are overheating - academics were alarmed at the high temperatures we are seeing in Kiwi homes. It is worrying that we are still allowing the building of new homes that overheat. It is simple to fix and the NZGBC has campaigned on this for two years. The sector wants change so let’s get on with it Minister!
Read more about this research and growing overheating risks here
Green Property Summit – 11 August
The countdown is on to this year’s Green Property Summit and it’s shaping up to be one of our strongest programmes yet.
We’re bringing together leaders from across government and industry to tackle the big issues facing the sector, including an election-year political panel with senior ministers and spokespeople. Alongside that, we’ll explore global trends, share practical case studies on smart electrification, and look at how AI and new approaches to fitouts are changing the way we design and operate buildings.
Full programme and registration here: Green Property Summit 2026
New Zealand’s first Green Star Community projects launched
This month has been great to see New Zealand’s first two Green Star Communities projects coming to the fore. Congratulations to retirement village operators Oceania and to Metlifecare who both gained 4 Star Green Star Communities certificates for their respective retirement villages – Franklin Village and Ōtau Ridge.
It is wonderful to see this leadership from all those involved including contractors, designers and suppliers. The benefits of healthy, resilient, well-connected communities are becoming increasingly clear. Comfortable homes, strong social networks, and a connection to the natural environment are essential for wellbeing.
Introducing our Impact Partners opportunity
We’re also launching a new approach to partnership with the introduction of our Impact Partners programme.
This is about working more closely with a small number of organisations who want to play a leading role in accelerating change across the built environment. We’re looking for a select group of partners to support a nationwide programme of events and engagement.
While we will continue to work with sponsors across many of our activities, Impact Partners will help enable a more comprehensive national programme for our members and the wider sector. It’s about creating greater certainty in delivery, deeper impact, and stronger alignment with the priorities shaping our industry.
Places in this programme are limited, but we are keen to have conversations with members who see value in playing a more strategic role. If that sounds like you, please get in touch.
Ngā mihi nui
Andrew Eagles
CEO NZ Green Building Council