The Green Building Council of Australia have released a draft Green Star for Homes Standard which will certify that homes which designed and constructed to the standard are healthy, resilient and energy efficient

The Standard represents a key tool to drive the transformation of the residential sector and create a market for more sustainable, better performing homes.

Achieving Green Star Homes certification will require applicants to meet a range of criteria across three primary categories:

• Healthy: Green Star Certified homes will need to be well ventilated to prevent the growth of mould and built to minimise the entry of pollutants, such as bushfire smoke. They will need to be thermally comfortable, use materials that are low or non-toxic and have high quality lighting installed.
• Resilient: Green Star Certified homes will need to be built with proactive measures to be better than Code at withstanding natural disasters and future climate change conditions such as bushfires, flooding, and heat stress. The draft Standard proposes that a Green Star Certified home achieve a 40% reduction in water usage when compared against a reference home with measures such as landscaping to mitigate heat stress.
• Positive: Green Star Certified homes will need to be net zero energy meaning that they have been built to generate sufficient renewable energy to power all estimated regulated loads as well as estimated appliances and plug loads. They do not use gas, major appliances including refrigerators, washing machines and dishwashers must have a minimum 4-star energy efficiency rating, solar systems must be battery ready and all windows must be factory built double glazed IGU (Insulated Glass Units).

To achieve widespread change at scale, the Standard is primarily targeted at volume home builders and large-scale residential developers, from whom it has already received strong support. Stockland, Mirvac, Metricon and Rawson Homes, along with Chatham Homes, Passive House, Landcom and Development Victoria have all committed to piloting the new draft Standard through the early access program.

Consultation on the draft standard will run until 30 October 2020.

More information here