The Queensland Government has released its Green Door policy - two years after Premier Anna Bligh announced the election promise at the Green Cities 2009 conference in Brisbane.
Through the Green Door policy, the State Government will work with local government and referral agencies to deliver those development approvals that demonstrate exemplary sustainability performance much sooner.
Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) Chief Executive Romilly Madew said: "We congratulate the Queensland Government for taking a leadership position in developing the Green Door policy - the first in Australia."
"However we are concerned about the rigour of the proposed system and the potential for perverse outcomes".
The GBCA has been a participant on the Green Door Advisory Committee since the committee's inception in December 2010 and has actively participated in the development of the initiative.
"Whilst we are a strong supporter of the policy intent, which is to fast-track exemplary sustainable development proposals in Queensland, we believe the opportunity to set the bar high and really drive sustainability innovation within the industry has been missed", Madew said.
She added: "Our input into the Green Door policy development has been based on 9 years of defining integrated best practice sustainability benchmarks for the Australian property and construction industry, and we have been doing this longer than any other organisation in Australia", Madew said.
"In its current form we believe the policy does not adequately define exemplary sustainable development, has not undertaken a 'pilot' or 'test' phase, nor does it have the systems in place to assess and verify potentially nongenuine claims from project developers.
"The Green Door seems to have opened to everyone and anyone, instead of setting high standards and driving sustainability innovation within the industry.
"We would welcome the opportunity to work with the Queensland Government to make this initiative more rigorous and more robust", Madew concludes.
