Design and construction of new homes
Green Star Homes is Australia’s leading rating tool for new homes
Green Star Homes seeks to create highly efficient, fossil fuel free homes, powered by renewables that are healthy and resilient for all Australians. The Green Star Homes Certification provides you with the assurance from Australia’s leading authority on sustainable buildings with the Green Star Homes Trademark, which you can proudly display to your customers.
The Green Star Homes standard is created for volume home builders.
Released: 31 August 2021.
Positive, Healthy and Resilient homes for all Australians
Green Star Homes has three categories focusing on core outcomes that define what a healthy, resilient and positive home is. Each category contains a number of credits with requirements that must be met to meet the Green Star Homes Standard.
There are two important steps in certifying a home:
1. Green Star Designed Assessment
The first step on your path to certification is the Green Star Designed assessment. This stage involves submitting the designs of your product range for assessment with GBCA. If it meets the Green Star Homes requirements it will be awarded as ‘Green Star Designed’.
Once awarded by GBCA, this entitles you (the builder) to use the Green Star ‘Designed’ logo for marketing purposes on that product prior to construction. This will indicate to consumers that the home design complies with the Green Star Homes standard.
This assessment is not a formal certification. A standard design or product line is a pre-set design that a customer can purchase. They may be allowed set variations on this base design. These homes are not bespoke, thereby creating economies of scale through replication, streamlining, and enhancing efficiencies. This ‘Designed’ home could feasibly be built many times and across multiple locations, as it will form part of a builder’s product range that they offer their customers.
2. Green Star certification
The second stage is certification. Once a home has been built, the builder will submit ‘as constructed’ evidence for assessment and certification. This is a formal process by which the individual home is awarded a rating following an independent, third-party assessment of the project's submission against the requirements of the rating tool. This is what allows you to prove to your client that their house has been independently certified to meet Green Star Homes’ requirements.
A certified home can be marketed as being built to the Green Star Homes Standard.
Both stages are a document-based assessment process like that available under other Green Star rating tools. The documentation requirements work in a similar manner to other Green Star rating tools. Green Star Homes takes a ‘volume’ approach to certification. For example, evidence for many credits will be submitted and assessed once, rather than for each individual house seeking certification. Through this approach efficiencies in documentation can be made, thus allowing certification at scale.
Why certify?
Green Star Homes is the only independent sustainable homes certification available in Australia.
By certifying your homes, you will receive the following benefits:
- A trusted mark of quality and assurance that only the Green Star trademark can provide
- A point of differentiation in the market, allowing you to stand out
- A clear set of standards you can apply, knowing that you are in line with contemporary and leading practice when it comes to sustainability across carbon, etc
- Ability to showcase your products and organisation as a one committed to doing the right thing
- Opportunity to have your organisation and products showcased.
Be part of the change!
GBCA is working closely with its stakeholders and partners to further raise awareness of Green Star Homes in industry, government and with consumers. By certifying your homes with Green Star Homes, you can contribute this exciting movement, and respond to the growing consumer demand.
Learn more about GBCA’s future homes strategy.
Marketing Green Star Homes
You can market your Green Star project after it has been registered with us. More information is available below on the benefits of homes and how to market your certification.
Marketing Rules and Style Guide for Green Star projects Learn more about the benefits of Green Star HomesTechnical resources
The Green Star Homes standard is the key resource to help those seeking a certification understand how to meet the requirements for certification.
Frequently asked questions
To help you understand Green Star Homes and ways to work together, see FAQs below:
At this stage only volume home builders are eligible for Green Star Homes. We encourage those not meeting the volume builder eligibility requirement to explore other options such as Passive House certification.
We understand that a volume builder may have a range of variations on a single product line. Please contact the Market Engagement team to discuss how Green Star Homes can be best applied in this circumstance.
No. Green Star Homes is a rating system and Certification Trademark owned and managed by the Green Building Council of Australia. Projects that claim to meet the requirements of Green Star but are not certified by the GBCA are potentially in breach of trademark law and may be accused of ‘greenwash’.
No. Green Star Homes is intended to certify homes once built. We will provide a Green Star Homes Designed assessment of the design, however you are contractually obliged to follow through to certification once the home isbuilt.
The first step is to register your product range with GBCA. Registration formalises the arrangement with the GBCA for an assessment and certification to occur. Once registered, the GBCA can support your project through the certification process and answer questions about the application of Green Star on your project.
Registration is complete when the following has been done:
- the project details have been entered within the GBCA’s online portal
- the Certification Agreement has been executed
- the Certification Fee has been paid
All technical and guidance documents provided by the GBCA to project teams can be found in the resources section on the website (please note you will need to be logged into the website to access this).
When registering your project with the GBCA, you will be allocated a Technical Coordinator from the GBCA team to act as the key contact with the GBCA through the process and help you navigate through to certification. You may also choose to call upon a Green Star Accredited Professional who can assist you in the process.
With thanks to our partners
We thank the following organisations for their leadership and their support of our activities in this space. To be seen as a leader in driving change in the residential built environment, please contact our partnerships manager, Zeina Iesa.
Future Homes Gold partner
Future Homes Silver partner
Future Homes Supporting partners
Looking to buy a Green Star home?
Head over to our page for those looking to buy a Green Star Home.
How to buy a Green Star home