Housing New Zealand Wins Major Sustainability Award

Housing New Zealand Corporation has won a Govt3 award for its efforts to provide sustainable transport alternatives to its staff.

"This award is a significant boost to Housing New Zealand's efforts to improve the sustainability of its business," said chief executive Lesley McTurk.

"Because the Corporation has to manage 67,000 houses all over the country, our staff have to travel around communities and between them. We can't avoid that, but we can offer our staff cleaner, healthier ways to travel than just jumping in a car."

The Corporation has launched a pilot programme among its 15 neighbourhood offices in Auckland aimed at reducing the number of single-occupancy vehicle trips to work.

A car pooling programme has been developed, about 30 staff have been given a week's free trial on public transport to demonstrate that it is a viable alternative to a car, six pool bikes have been introduced for staff to use to visit tenants, and discount opportunities negotiated for staff interested in bringing their own bikes to work regularly.

In addition, the Corporation has reduced the average engine size and introduced environmental criteria to the selection of its vehicle fleet.

"The Travelwise pilot has so far proved highly successful, and the Govt3 award is a significant endorsement of it. There is a further six months to run on the pilot and then we will be assessing how to role it out across the whole organisation," Dr McTurk said.

"Sustainability is a concept Housing New Zealand is taking seriously. Alongside our work with staff, the Corporation has also been developing new environmentally-friendly state homes. A perfect example is a new home we have recently completed in Fordlands in Rotorua, which has also been highly commended in the Govt3 sustainable building awards category."

The Fordlands house comprises three bedrooms and was built with a budget of $180,000. It is specially designed to be energy efficient, with solar heating and water heating. All water fittings are low flow, and the roof is designed to collect rain water, which is stored for use in the garden and in the laundry.

"I would encourage the media to view this house in Rotorua because many of the design features it contains are likely to become key parts of state housing in the future," Dr McTurk said.

"I want to congratulate all staff involved in these sustainability projects, and I am delighted their work has been recognised."

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