Maurice Williamson
27 May, 2010
Speech to the NZ Sustainable Building Conference
Thank you for the invitation to speak here today. While sustainability in my view has become an over-used term that encompasses a multitude of disparate views of the world, I'm all for cutting edge innovation and excellence in buildings.

By bringing together centuries of good practice, with new design solutions and technologies, we are at the edge of a dynamic frontier. The building and construction sector is an exciting place to be.

I believe in the inherent sense of the market place as we seek to optimise building solutions that enhance our productivity and lift the performance of our economy. I also believe we have a strong future as an exporter of intellectual property and products in the building space.

If sustainable building has become equated with superior quality in the mind of consumers - then so be it. I don't mind how we label quality - as long as it delivers tangible progress and better performance.

So we certainly share a common goal - that is building that aligns economic sense with good solutions for people and the environment.

As you know, the built environment is integral to our society - we all live and work somewhere. And the future of New Zealand's built environment will be shaped by the ideas and projects shared at conferences like these.

That future needs to be one that not only meets the needs of people but also reduces the impact of building on the environment.

You will have heard - and will hear more - from other speakers about what can be done to make sustainable building a reality. I'm going to tell you what this Government is doing.

Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart

Warm, dry and healthy homes are essential not only for each individual New Zealander but for our success as a nation.

While we have a Building Code that provides for minimum levels of performance in new homes, there over a million existing homes that do not reach what we consider acceptable standards today.

The Warm Up NZ: Heat Smart scheme introduced by this Government is helping home owners to access insulation upgrades and efficient clean heating appliances.

In the nine-month period to the end of March 2010, over 37,000 houses were retrofitted and nearly 4000 houses had a heater installed.

Of the total, 60% were low income homes and 40% general income homes. Approximately 15% of the homes were rental properties. The scheme is on target to meet its target of 50,000 retrofits in the financial year ending June 30th.

Home rating tool

We think it's important that people have the right information to make informed decisions. The Government - through EECA and the Department of Building and Housing - is supporting an industry initiative to develop an assessment and rating tool that will make it easy for home owners and occupiers to understand the performance of their homes.

The tool will be web-based and have a free online assessment which informs the user about the performance of their home in terms of energy efficiency, water use, waste and indoor air quality - amongst other things.

The website will also provide useful information on cost-effective upgrades and other available options such as the Warm Up NZ scheme.

Home owners and occupiers can also choose to have their home assessed by an independent auditor for a modest fee and receive a star rating. This rating can be used to demonstrate to prospective buyers the additional value they are getting from improved energy and water efficiency and better indoor air quality compared to houses with lower ratings.

At the moment, these elements are both hard to quantify and demonstrate. And buyers tend to focus on size and how upmarket the bathroom and kitchen are.

Commercial buildings

Commercial buildings account for approximately 9% of our energy use - but we have little reliable information on how this energy is used within buildings.

The Department - along with EECA and BRANZ - is sponsoring a large research project which is measuring how energy is used in commercial buildings.

Initially, the findings will help businesses, landlords and tenants know where they can save energy - and money.

The results of this research will also be used to help Government decide if any policy intervention is needed to drive improvements in energy efficiency. Such interventions could be

• providing advice on improving energy efficiency

• providing incentives to owners and tenants

• or, as a last resort, changing the building regulations.

There is also industry interest in developing an assessment and rating tool for existing commercial buildings - with a particular focus on energy efficiency.

I am strongly in favour of industry developing tools which meet a market need without Government having to regulate for their introduction and use.

Solar water heaters guidance

Getting approval to install solar water heating is now easier due to guidance that has been published by the Department. This guidance complements the Acceptable Solution for installing solar systems, by allowing some systems that don't use the standard details in the Acceptable Solution to never-the-less get consent easily and quickly.

The Solar Water Heaters Guidance is not mandatory for anyone, but helps installers and councils to understand how and why a solar water system complies with the Building Code, allowing a greater range of solar water systems to be easily consented. This should let industry innovate and do things more efficiently, while not running into red-tape.

Workshops were held late last year to roll out the solar guidance and explain how it can be used. This sort of education and guidance - rather than regulation - fits into a wider push by this Government to improve competence in the building sector, which is key to improving productivity.

Industry has their part to play, so it is pleasing to see the solar industry has developed training courses to upskill their installers. The Solar Industry Association's "Accredited Installer" scheme does for solar water heating what the Licensed Building Practitioner scheme will do for building houses - it provides homeowners with people they can trust to do the job right, first time. I will talk more about the Licensed Building Practitioner scheme later.

Simple Starter Home

Sustainability is usually associated with increased insulation, solar water heating, good solar design and efficient appliances. However, while many new homes being built contain these features, they are frequently large houses with four or five bedrooms and one or two occupants.

To show this can be done, I've been pushing forward work on the simple, Starter Home initiative which shows that a well-designed simple home can be an attractive and compelling alternative to a larger house.

To assist people to achieve a simple house with a minimum of fuss, the Simple House Acceptable Solution document has been produced. It brings together in one place for the first time, all the Building Code requirements and standards necessary for easy compliance for a simple house.

Its purpose is to provide a design solution for simple housing which minimises risks to health and safety - and set appropriate standards of building quality, without inhibiting design creativity.

It is intended to encourage market-based solutions for simple houses and to provide opportunities for cost savings for designers and owners by simplifying the design and consent processes.

It is also about being more sustainable financially - being able to afford to build and to afford to live in our homes.

The Simple House Acceptable Solution is for houses constructed from the most commonly-used building products. It takes a simplified approach to earthquake, wind and snow loadings, and is applicable across a wide range of climatic and geographic conditions.

A house designed to the Simple House Acceptable Solution may be sited on any plot of land in New Zealand with respect to earthquake loads, the majority of sites with respect to wind, and in most populated areas with respect to snow load.

A house designed to Simple House Acceptable Solution will be of low weathertightness risk.

The Simple House Acceptable Solution includes options for insulation, cladding, and special foundation conditions, including for the first time in New Zealand - code-compliant conditions for foundations on expansive clays.

A design competition run by the Department of Building and Housing showed that high quality, desirable and affordable homes can be designed using the Simple House Acceptable Solution.

Housing NZ Corporation is currently building the winning design in Manukau city and several of the other finalists' designs are being built by homeowners around New Zealand.

Productivity

One way to improve our impact on the earth is to use our resources more productively - that is getting more output for a specified input.

The building and construction sector has low productivity. In fact, it's the least productive part of the New Zealand economy. This has to change.

Following on from a successful industry-led task force on productivity, the Department has been working with the likes of BRANZ and the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation to set up a ‘productivity partnership' between the sector and Government to take forward a work programme that aims to lift productivity.

This will involve research, work on the design and production process, skills, and the procurement process.

I want the partnership to be sector led, with Government departments supporting the work where appropriate.

The Better Building Blueprint

So what else is this Government going? Well, in my building and construction portfolio, the big picture we are putting into action is called our Blueprint for Better Building.

This blueprint encompasses a number of initiatives to reduce regulatory barriers - to make it easier and cheaper for New Zealanders to do sensible things in their homes like heat pumps and solar hot water.

This Better Building Blueprint is about putting in place a new generation of building control - combining quality and cost effectiveness to get a more productive and efficient building sector.

The Blueprint is about cutting costs - not cutting corners.

One of the blueprint initiatives I launched in February this year was MultiProof - the National Multiple Use Approval Service.

This service allows volume builders to obtain a one-off approval of a basic building design, which helps to simplifying the building consent process where those plans are used.

By having a design that will be replicated a number of times pre-approved for Building Code compliance by the Department, building consent authorities need only assess site-specific details when issuing a building consent.

This will make the building consent process easier and faster for volume builders and those who replicate building designs more than 10 times over two years.

Another Better Building Blueprint initiative I've recently been implementing is streamlining of the Licensed Building Practitioner scheme.

This scheme is about lifting the skill level and quality of work amongst our designers, builders and tradespeople. It is about both the trade and the public having confidence that homes and buildings are built right, first time.

The feedback we got about the scheme was that becoming a Licensed Building Practitioner was unnecessarily complex. That we weren't recognising the many people out there who had done their time on the tools and had trade qualifications to back up their practical skills and experience.

But now the good news is that being qualified counts for something. Under the streamlined scheme, almost 30 qualifications are recognised, spread out among the different licensing classes.

This means that builders and tradespeople with a qualification and a good track record can get licensed faster, more cheaply, and with less paperwork.

Another significant component of the Blueprint for Better Building is a review the Building Act of 2004.

In brief, the Building Act review is looking at options to reduce the cost and complexity of consenting - and to ensure the people hired to do the work take responsibility for building it right first time and stand behind their work.

We put some ideas on the table in February and the Department has received more than 350 submissions on those proposals.

One of the specific questions we asked was whether the current reference to sustainability was clear, and we have received some useful feedback on that.

A number of submissions touched on the issues you are considering at this conference - about how to improve the quality of our buildings and the health and wellbeing of those using them, in a sustainable way.

I want to thank all those who put time and effort into commenting. A wide range of views were expressed. There is support for the principle of what we're trying to achieve, but there is also concern about the detail of how the proposals might work in practice and what the impact might be.

I want to repeat what I said at the beginning of the review process - we will not do anything that compromises quality. I have an open mind on the best way to improve the productivity and efficiency of the sector while maintaining and improving quality.

There is now a lot of work underway to analyse the submissions before any policy decisions are made.

We are still on track to make decisions on the outcomes of the review over the next couple of months.

Closing Remarks

What I've shared with you today shows that this Government is delivering on making the built environment better for New Zealanders. Better buildings mean better performance and better productivity - a win win for all of us.

Enjoy the rest of your conference. I'm sure there will be plenty of robust discussion over the next two days. I look forward to broader adoption of the successful projects - as well as the practical application of ideas shared at this conference.

ENDS

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