Kiwibank has officially moved into its new Auckland home – a building with a Six Green Star Certification near Wynyard Quarter. Michael Andrew went to see how sustainable a building has to be to earn so many stars.

In late 2019, when fans at Eden Park were sipping away at Sprite, Coke and L&P while watching a cricket match, they would’ve never foreseen that the following year those plastic bottles would be sitting 40 metres above downtown Auckland.

But when you walk along Fanshawe St or across Victoria Park toward the city and look up at Kiwibank’s new home in a six-green-star-rated office building, 11,136 plastic bottles is exactly what you’ll see.

Not individually of course; they’ve been integrated and woven into a large, one-of-a-kind, LED-backlit sign sitting at the top of the building. Starting with Tangaroa College students collecting bottles from Eden Park, the sign took almost a year to craft and was designed to showcase what waste could be turned into with the right kind of ingenuity. According to the lead designer, Danielle Barclay from 99, Kiwibank was looking for a unique piece of signage that reflected the sustainability aspects of the new building.

“We thought this was potentially a great opportunity to not just talk about the importance of sustainability, but actually showcase how you can fundamentally create beauty from waste,” she says. “It was a really bold idea because we had not been able to find a precedent for this anywhere in the world. I think we can safely say it’s definitely never been done in New Zealand.”

Although the sign contains 2,217 LEDs that illuminate the bottles at night, it uses only 1596.24 watts – about the same as an average household vacuum cleaner. Barclay says everything about the sign, from its recycled build to its low energy use, embodies the sustainable ethos of the building on which it now sits.

To the public, a building’s low energy or sustainability features typically aren’t all that conspicuous. Apart from the sign, there is little on the facade that sets it apart from other buildings. So what exactly makes it so sustainable?

First of all, it’s one of only eight office buildings in New Zealand to have been awarded six green stars by the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) – the highest rating available. This takes into account the sustainable use of materials, how the building uses energy and water, access to sustainable transport, and the quality of the indoor environment.

It is owned by Mansons TCLM and designed by architecture firm Architectus. According to Sam Archer, director of market transformation at NZGBC, Kiwbank’s new building – named Te Kupenga – is a huge asset to Auckland’s skyline and will help ensure a healthy and efficient workplace for staff.

“The design for this building included rapid electric car charging points for staff and visitors, ventilation controlled by carbon dioxide sensors, and efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems,” he says.

“Plus the glass is a specific high-performance double glazing to help reduce the need for heating and cooling throughout the year.”

With Auckland still in the grips of a drought, one of the building’s most critical features is its rainwater harvesting system, which can capture and store up to 55,000 litres of rain water from the roof to be used in all the toilets and gardens. Much of the furniture was brought over from previous offices and the construction used low-impact steel and concrete and responsibly sourced timber. With 184 square metres of solar panels installed on the roof, the building is designed to use 40% less power than an average office building.

All this information is available for everyone to see as soon as they walk into the lobby. Next to the elevators is a digital information board that displays the live performance metrics of the building, including how much power has been used and saved up until that moment.

Archer said this unique feature earned the building a bonus point in its rating.

“We also gave credit for innovative steps to educate tenants and visitors about green building with the design, including a screen in the reception to display energy and water use, and information about the remediation of contaminated land.”

So does the look and feel inside the building actually back up the data? Kiwibank’s office on the third floor is certainly an impressive working space. Mostly open plan, it has a 360-degree outlook around Wynyard Quarter and Freemans Bay. The main glass facade overlooks the verdant London plane trees of Victoria Park, and the green and brown colour scheme and unique artwork in the office evoke native flora.

Other than Kiwibank, the building is home to TradeMe, Southern Cross Insurance and Genesis Energy, each with their own floor. In the basement car park are fleets of e-bikes and EVs alongside dozens of electric charging points – testimony to the building’s commitment to renewable transport.

Although the building is in the final stages of completion and teams moved in only in late October, Kiwibank’s head of sustainability Julia Jackson says every aspect has been designed to help people feel good when they’re there.

“We know that connection to nature is very important to mental wellbeing. Even the fact that we’ve used low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints, and more environmentally friendly construction materials; you don’t necessarily notice them but the air is generally fresher and it’s a nicer environment to be working in.”

“The amount of light that’s coming in – all of that is very important as part of a green star building, because you’re trying to utilise as much of the natural parts as you can.”

Of course, the main benefit of a new building like this is having everything designed bespoke, rather than adapting an existing building. Jackson says starting a building from scratch makes it easier to optimise sustainability goals while creating the best possible working environment for staff.

“As a bank we have committed to reducing our electricity use by 60% by 2022. The way in which this building is designed meets the highest efficiency standards and makes reaching our target much more achievable.

“That was not going to be possible where we were. Now we are moved in, I’m looking forward to supporting our team to continue on this journey to be a better and more sustainable organisation.”

This content was created in paid partnership with the Kiwibank. Learn more about our partnerships here. 

The massive dairy cooperative has released its fourth annual sustainability report, highlighting what it reckons is going right and wrong in controversial environmental and social areas. 

What’s all this then?

The Tātou Tātou 2020 Sustainability Report is Fonterra’s attempt to bring together the strands that make up its wider strategy, to get a competitive advantage out of producing environmentally friendly and low-carbon milk in New Zealand and selling it to the world. The 84-page doorstopper was released this morning, outlining where progress is better and worse on what is sometimes referred to as the “triple bottom line” – social, environmental and financial outcomes. 

And how’s it all going for Fonterra?

It’s a complex picture, but on the financial side things are going much better for the cooperative compared to some deeply troubled previous years. Debt is being paid down, there’s plenty of cashflow, divestments are continuing from troubled overseas assets, and the money is flowing back into the country. An estimated $11bn was put into the regions through the milk price payout, not to mention farmer-shareholders once again getting a small dividend on top. 

That’s cool, but what about the environmental issues that people often criticise Fonterra for?

Here the progress was more mixed, with some clear wins being trumpeted and other areas noted for future improvement. One target set in 2003, to reduce the energy intensity at manufacturing sites by 20% by 2020, has now been hit. That saves “enough energy to power all the households in Aotearoa for 1.5 years”, according to the release. “It shows we’ve got proof that when we do set out to do things, we deliver on them,” said CEO Miles Hurrell.

The conversion of the Te Awamutu processing plant boiler from coal to wood pellets has also saved significant amounts of carbon. “I’m not sure how many companies took out 80,000 tonnes of emissions over the last winter, in terms of the Te Awamutu overhaul and using alternative fuel sources,” said chief operating officer Fraser Whineray. And he talked up other surprising aspects about the company’s carbon intensity he had learned since arriving last year. 

“Our global supply chain, shifting two and a half million tonnes of product, uses the same emissions as 80,000 cars do in New Zealand each year, and we’ve got four million cars. So even though people talk about food miles and distances of some of the carbon footprint, our end-to-end delivery of food nutrition across the planet is in a great position. It’s a competitive advantage, in an increasingly carbon-scarce world.” 

Again, carbon reduction is cool, but cows burp out methane. What’s happening there?

Because of methane emissions, dairy production accounts for about a quarter of New Zealand’s total emissions – most of which comes from Fonterra cows. And it’s perhaps notable that the word “carbon” appears in the report four times as much as “methane” – producing low-carbon milk is much more controllable and achievable for Fonterra than producing low-methane milk. Within that goal, they’re looking to technological and scientific approaches to reduce methane, like feeding cows methane inhibitors, including a type of seaweed. 

How are they keeping tabs on farmers to make sure this all happens?

Fonterra is continuing to roll out Farm Environment Plans, and now 34% of supplier farmers have one in place. FEPs, as they’re called, basically give farmers specific actions to take to reduce emissions and environmental degradation. The costs of producing them are worn by Fonterra, rather than the farmers themselves. So why such low numbers? “When you look back at a macro level, would you like to go harder and faster? Absolutely we would,” said Whineray. “Resourcing has been a bit of a bottleneck in the past in this sort of area; we are increasing our resourcing significantly off the back of quite a robust discussion with the sustainability panel.”  

What is the sustainability panel?

The sustainability advisory panel is an external group that sees itself as a “critical friend” to Fonterra. It is chaired by Bridget Coates, a businessperson and director with vast experience. Coates said the board and senior management of Fonterra have plenty of “tolerance” for the panel challenging their views and plans. 

But does the panel have any actual hard power to demand changes? When asked for specific wins that could be pointed to, Coates said that wasn’t so much the function of the panel –  rather it is about putting forward perspectives they believe are important which may or may not then get taken on board. In fact, the panel doesn’t always even agree with itself. As examples, Coates cited the work of panel member Aroha Mead in bringing tikanga Māori principles into the internal communications of Fonterra, and the urging of Paul Gilding to do more on emissions, as examples of where the panel had made an impact. 

Are there any areas where Fonterra sees itself as doing genuinely badly?

One point noted in the report is that the senior leadership of Fonterra still isn’t particularly diverse, and is falling short of targets on both gender and ethnic diversity. 

On workplace safety, the rate of incidents requiring medical treatment ticked up over the course of the year. Out of about 20,000 staff, there were 247 incidents that required medical treatment. There were 10 incidents of serious injuries, which was a reduction on last year. 

Is this all just greenwashing, and we’re getting sucked in by marginal stuff that doesn’t really address the core issues around sustainability?

Possibly, and it will take years to really see progress in a lot of the areas that really matter. But analysing the report as a whole, one thing is clear – Fonterra is desperate to brand itself as being among the most environmentally friendly dairy producers in the world. That’s how they survive against global competition, and the rise of alternative proteins. And for that branding to be authentic – particularly for an organisation and sector that is closely scrutinised by media, environmental watchdog organisations and the public – measurable actions need to be taken and improved upon year after year.