NZX-listed Precinct Properties is leading a pioneering initiative to help decarbonise key building materials, aiming to align New Zealand’s construction sector with Green Star and science-based target initiative (SBTi) emissions targets. The programme, led by Precinct's Head of Sustainability and chair of our Green Star Advisory Committee, Lisa Hinde, is designed to provide a clear, phased pathway for reducing the embodied carbon of materials like steel, concrete, and aluminium—those most commonly used in commercial developments.
“We undertook a bit of research with TSA Riley to understand the main building products that contribute to our upfront carbon budgets,” Hinde explains. “Once you’ve optimised your design, reduced your building size, and done everything else, you’re still left with a core set of materials like steel, concrete, and aluminium that dominate the carbon profile.”
To address this, Precinct wants to work with suppliers and manufactures to ensure they understand the upcoming demand for lower-carbon building products, with a proposed “step-down” approach: a gradual tightening of carbon intensity specifications for these materials, giving local suppliers a multi-year lead time to adapt. In parallel, Precinct intend to deepen their engagement with building services consultants and project teams at the end-of-design and procurement stages. This will ensure that carbon performance targets are embedded early in conversations with the supply chain, enabling alignment on expectations and accountability from the outset.
“We want to ensure it’s not a big step once you hit 2028 or 2030,” says Hinde. “It’s a gradual step down to give the market some certainty around where we’re going to land.”
Working with industry, including initial local testing with Mott Macdonald, Holmes, and Beca, the initiative aims to prevent local suppliers from being excluded from future tenders due to non-compliance with carbon budgets. “The alternative is that nobody lets these suppliers know the risks, and then in 2027 or 2028 they’re excluded from projects,” she warns. “We want to ensure the longevity and resilience of our local suppliers.”
Although still in the early stages, the project is currently testing three distinct pathways to support compliance with carbon reduction targets in specifying for projects:
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Option 1 – Performance-Based Specification
This approach applies to product and material categories that already disclose embodied carbon values. It involves setting performance thresholds that progressively tighten over time, encouraging continual improvement.
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Option 2 – Transparency-Driven Specification
For materials where embodied carbon data is not yet available, this option requires suppliers to disclose material composition and/or provide an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), laying the groundwork for future performance-based requirements.
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Option 3 – Commitment to Decarbonisation
This pathway allows suppliers and manufacturers to demonstrate a credible, organisation-wide commitment to reducing emissions over time, even if current product-level data is limited.
The framework was recently presented at the Property Council’s Reset conference in May and will be further discussed at the organisation’s upcoming sustainability roundtable. Interest is growing from developers, landlords, and financial institutions. “This isn’t just a Precinct exercise,” Hinde says. “We might be driving it, but we want the industry to own the outcome.”
Precinct’s leadership is underpinned by its commitment to the World Green Building Council Net Zero Buildings Commitment which includes a minimum 5 Star Green Star rating for all new developments.
Precinct aims to seek peer and industry support over the next month, before refining the step-down targets by end of August, in time for formal adoption this coming September.
“This is a signal to the market,” says Hinde. “Low-carbon building products and materials must and will become the norm—not the niche. We’re making it clear that demand is coming, and we want our local supply chain ready to meet it.”