The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) is partnering with the Living Future Institute of Australia (LFIA) and the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) to establish healthier, resilient, equitable and ecologically restorative building practices.
A memorandum of understanding signed by the three organisations outlines a commitment to work towards common goals in the high performance buildings segment in Australia.
GBCA Chief Executive Officer, Romilly Madew explains that the commitment outlines work to align relevant Green Star credits and Living Building Challenge (LBC) Imperatives; research to identify gaps between best practice and high performance buildings in operation; collaboration on events and courses; and promotion of leading practices in Australia.
Observing that all three organisations are working towards a common future, Madew says the partnership aligns their activities, rating systems and efforts to drive the adoption of sustainable building practices at a faster pace, and demonstrate the value of a sustainable future.
One of the core objectives of the partnership will be to identify the connections between Green Star credits and LBC Imperatives, which will help identify a pathway for joint certification. This collaboration will also open up the possibility to integrate leading LBC Imperatives into Green Star through their Innovation Challenges.
LFIA’s Chair, Mary Casey, says the new partnership is an important opportunity to assess how both rating systems can complement and reinforce each other and continue to move the building industry towards a socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative future.
Commenting that LBC has created a high bar for sustainable building, Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of the International Living Future Institute added that exploring the connections between LBC and Green Star is a logical step that can take the Australian green building industry to the next innovative level.
GBCA and LFIA will also deliver a range of events and education programs to provide stakeholders with resources and skills to explore the LBC and Green Star connection points.
