Sustainable buildings (sustainable operations)

AUT aims for its buildings to have a positive impact on people and the environment. Sustainable buildings encompass a range of aspects – including energy, water, materials and waste. Two key targets within our sustainable building plan are:

• All new and existing building projects meet AUT’s sustainable building design guide
• 90% of construction and demolition waste is reused, recycled or recovered across new and existing building projects by 2025

What we're doing to meet sustainable building targets

These are some of the ways we're committing to meeting our targets around sustainable buildings:

• Identifying a panel of waste contractors that are achieving 80% construction and demolition waste diversion, and working with them to achieve 90%
• AUT's sustainable building design guide has been drafted and we’re now progressing to implementation
• Identified sustainability ratings of regularly purchased furniture items, trialing a re-upholstery initiative for existing AUT furniture and switching upholstery to more sustainable options like 100% NZ wool

Building initiatives on campus

Our initiatives have involved the inclusion of sustainability features in new buildings.

WZ building design (City Campus)

Some of the sustainability features of WZ building include high performance external facades and sun shading to limit energy consumption; building on a brownfield (a parking building was located at the site); improved natural light distribution; high efficiency LED lighting with sensors and controls; and rainwater harvesting.

WZ was also designed to be a living laboratory for students and staff: theoretical lessons are brought to life by showing how they have been applied to WZ’s building design. Services are exposed and students can access the building management system to learn about measuring and reducing energy usage.