Excerpt from : COUNTING THE GREEN STAR BENEFITS - 5 June 2013 by Richard Collins
Green Star-rated buildings emit around 1/3 of the greenhouse emissions of the average Australian building and use 1/3 of the electricity.
The GBCA (Green Building Council of Australia) HQ building in Brisbane has been certified as a 6 Star building. The GBCA report : 'The Value of Green Star : A decade of environmental benefits', analyses data from 428 Green Star-certified buildings and compares it to the "average" Australian building and minimum practice benchmarks. The report examines the impact of Green Star on greenhouse emissions, operational energy and water consumption, and construction and demolition waste.
'This report confirms what we've been saying for a decade - Green Star buildings are slashing greenhouse gas emissions, making significant savings on energy & water consumption costs and reducing the impact of truckloads of waste on our landfill sites'.
Here are the headline findings :
Energy & Carbon
• On average, Green Star-certified buildings produce 62% fewer greenhouse emissions and use 66% less electricity than average Australian buildings, saving 625,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide/per year.
• On average, Green Star-certified buildings also produce 45% fewer greenhouse emissions and consume 50% less electricity than new buildings designed & constructed to meet the construction code requirements.
• Taken together, the 428 Green Star buildings in the study have reduced electricity consumption by 580,000MVVh, equivalent to 5% of the Hazelwood Power Plant's total annual output.
