Green Business: New Zealand's first EcoBroker

New Zealand's first EcoBroker, Lyn Lacy-Hauk.

Green Business is about more than just offering a recycling bin at the door. This summer nzherald.co.nz profiles green businesses and business people taking a new approach.

A new kind of real estate agent – known as an EcoBroker - has entered the Kiwi housing market.

The country's first EcoBroker, Lynn Lacy-Hauk, said sustainable housing is the future of New Zealand real estate.

She said her role as an eco-broker involved advising clients on how they could increase the value of their property through creating more comfortable, healthier homes with less environmental impact.

Lacy-Hauk recently completed an internationally recognised EcoBroker qualification, but has found New Zealand lacks a formal system for measuring building efficiency.

"It's a little before the horse, to be perfectly honest," she said. "I can advise people but I don't give specific advice on how much and what of."

But Lacy-Hauk, who recently took over as office manager at Baileys' Titirangi branch, said being an EcoBroker would become much easier next year when a formal residential rating system is introduced.

The New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) and Beacon Pathway are currently working to develop a system for assessing the performance of New Zealand residential homes.

The rating system is set to be available from mid-2010, when homeowners will be able to access a free assessment online to obtain a rating of up to four stars.

In order to get a 5 –10 star-rating homes would require an independent assessment.

The new system would consider factors such as energy consumption, health and comfort in the home, waste and construction materials when allocating ratings.

Lacy-Hauk said the system would allow EcoBrokers to "compare apples with apples".

Power savings were not the only benefit people gain from living in sustainable homes, she said.

"The immediate benefit to creating healthier and more energy efficient homes is experienced in the comfort level of living in them."
Overseas data indicated that sustainable homes fetch resale values 8 to 15 per cent higher than their non-sustainable counterparts, she added.

Growing up in New Mexico, in the United States, has influenced her views on sustainable housing.

"A lot of the houses there have been built from traditional materials."
She said the heavy use of treated pine as framing timber in New Zealand was an example of unhealthy Kiwi building practices.

"In order to make it durable we've got to poison it, then we breath it," she said. "What people see as quality in New Zealand is very different to what people see as quality in other countries."

She added that many New Zealand homes are cold and damp, and lack double-glazing and proper insulation – all factors that lead to increased energy costs.

"Achieving sustainability will involve a continuum of education and improvements of existing house stock."