Beacon

Building Sustainable Homes:
What Local Government Can Do

Beacon has recently completed a range of research either targeted at, or supporting, local government encouragement of sustainable building and renovation.    Beacon Pathway’s research suggests that people would find it easier to build and retrofit their homes sustainably if council policies, plans and processes were more supportive of sustainable design.

From our discussions with council officers, we know that councils are interested in promoting more sustainable housing choices, but that they are working with limited resources and some uncertainty as to what they can do.  Recent research of particular use to councils includes:

• Energy research into various house types, their prevalence around New Zealand and the best retrofit options to improve their performance
• Energy research into the best renewable energy options around New Zealand
• Research into water demand management and a framework to support councils to decide on the best water policies for them
• A resource manual to support local government in encouraging sustainable building and renovation

What the workshop will cover

As part of this workshop, we will:

• Introduce the contents of Beacon’s new publication Building Sustainable Homes: a Resource Manual for Local Government.
• Share critical findings from Beacon’s retrofit and new-build research programmes.
• Equip officers with information about how homes can be better designed for energy, water, indoor environment quality and waste.
• Outline the range of regulatory and non-regulatory policy tools available to councils to promote more sustainable building in their districts.
• Identify some simple priority actions that could be undertaken across New Zealand, and in locally-specific contexts.

Who will be interested?

The workshop is designed for a broad range of council officers, and we would like to invite you to assemble a small team to attend from across different council units. We would particularly recommend it for:

• Staff involved in assessing resource and building consent applications, including planners, engineers, building compliance officers
• Forward planners (e.g. those involved in writing District Plan provisions)
• Asset managers with responsibility for council housing stock
• Sustainability advisors 

Dates:

Christchurch, 11 June

Wellington, 19 June

Rotorua, July (tbc)

Auckland, August (tbc)

Where to book

Spaces are limited. Please contact Kim Hinton to register your interest:    tel: 09 522 5170