New CEO for Green Building Council

Alex Cutler. Photo / Supplied

Alex Cutler, who has a strong background in sustainable business practice, has been appointed chief executive of the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC).

Cutler, who has spent the past 12 years consulting on sustainability, replaces Jane Henley, who was recently appointed chief executive of the World Green Building Council.

Most recently, Cutler was associate director at PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand, responsible for building and leading the sustainability practice.

Before PricewaterhouseCoopers, she worked for strategy consultancy and think-tank SustainAbility, specialising in devising sustainability strategies for large multinational companies in a wide variety of sectors, including the building industry.

In announcing the appointment, NZGBC chairman Dean Riddell said Cutler had the knowledge, experience and drive to lead the NZGBC through the next phase of its development.

"Her immediate focus will be to address the improvement of our existing buildings for higher levels of environmental performance, introducing the residential rating tool and driving continued improvements to the Green Star suite of tools."

Cutler said the development of a Green Star performance tool this year would mean the industry could assess the energy and environmental performance of the majority of New Zealand's commercial buildings so they could be benchmarked, managed, rated and improved.

"The residential rating tool has the potential to drive significant change for all New Zealanders by assessing the comfort and performance of New Zealand's new and existing homes," she said.

"I'm looking forward to building on a great foundation that Jane Henley has laid, and to furthering our relationship with the World GBC through this connection."