Green Star
Green Star assesses the sustainable design, construction and operation of buildings, fitouts and communities.
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Communities
Neighbourhoods and community
Green Star – Communities assesses the planning, design and construction of large scale development projects at a precinct, neighbourhood and/or community scale. It provides a rigorous and holistic rating across five impact categories.
The current version of the rating tool is: Green Star – Communities v1.1. This was released on 13/09/2016.
The five categories and credits
Governance
Aims to encourage and recognise developers and projects that demonstrate leadership within the sector, by establishing and maintaining strong governance practices. The category promotes engagement, transparency, as well as community and industry capacity building. It also seeks to ensure that community projects are resilient to a changing climate.
Liveability
Aims to encourage and recognise developments that deliver safe, accessible and culturally rich communities. The category encourages the development of healthy and active lifestyles, and rewards communities that have a high level of amenity, activity, and inclusiveness.
Economic prosperity
Aims to encourage and recognise projects that promote prosperity and productivity. The category encourages affordable living and housing, investment in education and skills development, and community capacity building. This category also promotes greater productivity through emerging opportunities in the digital economy.
Environment
Aims to reduce the impact of urban development on ecosystems. It encourages resource management and efficiency by promoting infrastructure, transport, and buildings, with reduced ecological footprints. The Environment category seeks to reduce the impacts of projects on land, water, and the atmosphere.
Innovation
Aims to recognise the implementation of innovative practices, processes and strategies that promote sustainability in the built environment.
Innovation Challenges
Innovation Challenges are designed to encourage and direct investment in solutions that address a wide range of social, economic and environmental sustainability issues. Some Innovation Challenges take the form of new credits, while others simply identify sustainability issues that additional research and innovation will help to address.
Change log
We are constantly working to improve and refine Green Star – Communities in response to industry feedback and project queries. The change log provides a record of the revisions made with each release of the rating tool. (Updated 13/09/2016)
Green Star Communities Summary of changes from v1.0 to v1.1
Submission Guidelines
The Submission Guidelines provide detailed information on credit aims, criteria and compliance requirements and additional guidance, background information and resources. It is the main source of information on the technical requirements for projects pursuing Green Star certification.
Access the Submission Guidelines
The Submission Guidelines are available at our online shop. The guidelines are free to download for all members and available for purchase to non-members. (Updated on 13/09/2016, for Green Star – Communities v1.1 release)
Scorecard
The scorecard is an interactive Excel spreadsheet that must be used by projects seeking Green Star certification. The scorecard provides a scoring tool for projects to keep track of their Green Star points claims. The scorecard is also used by the GBCA to provide the results of assessment.
(Updated on 13/09/2016)
