This report examines the financial performance of commercial-scale solar in New Zealand by modelling systems for 144 business sites across eight centres.

This project, commissioned by the Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living (CRCLCL), aims to advance an important aspect of the National Energy Productivity Plan: specifically, Item 12, ‘improving energy productivity in government’.

The main objective of this rapid review was to identify and organise recent peer-reviewed empirical evidence for the energy efficiency of new (not retrofitted) green-rated office buildings.

The ultimate test of the business case for high performance low carbon building is to consider how the human benefits of these buildings could be reliably quantified to prove beyond all doubt the positive Return on Investment (ROI). After all, staff costs, including salaries and benefits, typically account for about 90% of business operating costs.

Employers, building owners, designers, developers, and investors throughout the world are learning, in response to an increasing body of evidence, that office design affects the health and wellbeing of occupants in many ways and so it is a smart business move to create green buildings that are healthy. Staff are the most valuable resource in...