20 November 2017

Auckland Council wins prestigious 6 Green Star Award

Auckland Council announced today that it is the proud winner of a prestigious 6 Green Star award for the retrofit internal building upgrade project at the council’s headquarters at 135 Albert Street.

The project, completed in March 2015, was judged to have achieved ‘World Leadership’ standard, reflecting elements of the building’s sustainability.

Features include a building management system that automatically senses and adjusts heating/cooling, and the use of LED lights with motion sensors to automatically turn lights off and on. These initiatives over the 29,500m2 floor area occupied by Auckland Council have resulted in:

· energy use down from approximately 650,000 kWhr per month to approximately 400,000 kWhr per month, with electrical energy use down 40%;
· savings of 34.5 tonnes of carbon/carbon equivalent (tCO2e) per month or 414 tCO2e per year;
· cost savings of $300,000 per year.

There was particular emphasis on waste reduction in the building design, with care taken to reduce the amount of waste that would be sent to landfill:
· the separation of organics and food waste to feed 78 on-site worm bins consumes approximately 78kg of food waste per day, or about 19 tonnes per year.

This equates to a saving of approximately $6,200 per year, even though the bins are currently only working at half capacity;
· 85 per cent of the waste that was produced during construction was either recycled or sold, rather than sent to landfill;
· the volume of overall waste generated during the fit out was reduced by 50 per cent, as many original materials and fittings were re-used rather than installing new items: for example, existing light fittings were refurbished with LEDs. These initiatives saved approximately $250,000.

Councillor Penny Hulse, Chair of the Environment and Community Committee, sent congratulations to all staff involved.

“I am pleased that the council is being recognised for its efforts in creating a more sustainable Auckland. It means a lot to be actually walking the talk and to be acknowledged for doing so.”

Andrew Eagles, Chief Executive of the NZ Green Building Council, who awarded the Green Star rating said, “This is a significant achievement for Auckland Council, and for all the great Kiwi building businesses involved in this refit. It’s a world-class project, with some real clever innovations which should make us proud. And, to top it all off, this cutting-edge refit is saving Aucklanders hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, due to some great energy and waste efficiencies.”

Rod Aitken, Head of Corporate Property, said, “The internal refit was a very successful project and carefully thought through to get maximum value for our dollar spend. As well as carbon and energy savings, the building also delivers a better working environment for our people.”

The partners in the project were: eCubed Sustainability; Fletcher Construction; GHDWoodhead creativespaces; NDY Building Consultants; and Pragmatix.

ENDS

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