The end goal of the Living Building Challenge is to encourage the creation of a regenerative built environment. The challenge is an attempt to raise the bar for building standards from doing less harm to contributing positively to the environment.
Living Buildings are regenerative buildings that connect occupants to light, air, food, nature, and community. Self-sufficient and remain within the resource limits of their site. Create a positive impact on the human and natural systems that interact with them.
The Living Building ChallengeTM is the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard. It calls for the creation of building projects at all scales that operate as cleanly, beautifully and efficiently as nature’s architecture.
To be certified under the challenge, projects must meet a series of ambitious performance requirements, including net zero energy, waste and water, over a minimum of 12 months of continuous occupancy.
The Living Building Challenge is organised into seven performance areas called Petals. Each Petal is further sub-divided into Imperatives, which address specific issues through detailed requirements. The seven performance areas include: Place, equity, water, beauty, materials, health & happiness and energy.
There are currently 16 projects registered to achieve the Living Building Challenge across Australia and 1 project that has achieved full certification, as of November 2019!
Take a look at UOW home to Australia’s most sustainable building: https://innovationcampus.com.au/uow-home-to-australias-most-sustainable-building/
The living building challenge is an ever-evolving program shaped by the experience of project teams as they break new ground. Actively using the challenge helps to understand how to refine and improve the program to have the greatest impacts. Monitoring changes and making adjustments to the program as required ensures the bar is continually raising, while we learn together. The end goal is a regenerative living future.