With the new Creating Living Buildings short course coming up this June in Auckland and Christchurch, I get asked “Why Living Buildings rather than, say, 'green' or 'efficient' buildings?”

It’s pretty simple really. We are facing some incredible challenges to our survival both in this country and globally, to which buildings and infrastructure contribute major impacts. The world population explosion and our inefficient use of resources is causing serious damage to our essential life support system – nature. So rather than just doing ‘less harm’ we need to realise the potential of our investments to restore and make good the damage.  After all, we all want to be here for a while yet and a healthy natural system is our only insurance.

The Living Building Challenge (LBC) starts to paint a picture of what ‘success’ looks like in terms of aligning our projects with nature, rather than killing it (and us!) off. By targeting the quadruple net zeros of energy, water, waste and toxicity, LBC sets the construction industry in NZ on a new path. Its rigorous goals force us to innovate new solutions to old problems and with these goals and a good process, it’s actually easy for buildings to use 75% less energy and water.

This course is a two-day practitioner course from Otago Polytechnic. Aimed at clients, design and engineering professionals as well as FM, QS and PMs, it will add clarity to sustainability and introduce the Living Building Challenge as a set of key goals.  It also looks at integrated design as an innovative and collaborative procurement process. Indepth case studies on commercial, residential and education projects explain how linking capital costs with ongoing operational costs can help us find the sweet spots that create long-term value for our clients and communities.

Share the goals and help deliver a sustainable future.