Certifications
Sustainability certifications are meant to cut through the noise, but they vary enormously in what they verify. Some assess a whole building, some a single product, some only one attribute like thermal performance or embodied carbon. A logo on a product tells you a scheme has been met, but it doesn’t tell you what that scheme measures, or what it leaves out.
These guides set out what each of the major Australian and international certifications covers, what it doesn’t, and how much weight the mark deserves when it appears on a material, a home or a brand.
Whole building rating systems
NABERS measures the real operational performance of Australian buildings. Learn what it rates, what it doesn’t, who it’s for, and how it works in practice.
NatHERS measures the thermal performance of Australian homes. Learn what it assesses, what it doesn’t, who it’s for, and how it fits into sustainable building.
A guide to Green Star by the GBCA – covering energy, carbon, materials, health, common misconceptions, and its role in Australian buildings.
Product and material certifications
Catch up on the latest
Deans Marsh House is built for now, and years to come
Designed by Tecture, Deans Marsh House is a rammed earth and timber home in rural Victoria, arranged as two pavilions either side of an earthen spine.
CLT House is a retreat designed to weather in the open
Designed by nArchitects, CLT House is a lake house built almost entirely from exposed cross-laminated timber, scaled down from an unbuilt 2008 scheme.
A Toronto renovation that keeps a century of reuse visible
Candy Loft is a renovation in Toronto by SUSA that keeps a heritage factory’s timber columns and stonework as the feature inside a single, sculptural home.
Comfort is the most basic test of a sustainable home
Juhani Pallasmaa’s The Eyes of the Skin argues for the whole-body experience of a building – and, read one way, for comfort as the most basic measure of a sustainable home.
Haus Hoinka: a straw bale monolith above an open garden
Most straw bale houses use the material just for the walls. Haus Hoinka by Atelier Kaiser Shen uses it for everything – floors, ceilings, roof – all wrapped in clay plaster and pressed into a spruce frame.
Three Japanese words that describe sustainable design better than ‘sustainability’
Three Japanese aesthetic concepts – wabi-sabi, shibui and ma – offer a different perspective on “sustainability.”
