by jbs012610 c3 — January 29, 2010—The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) is taking steps to recognize environmental advances made by Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) manufacturers across Australia, in order to continue to drive production and use of best practice materials.
A revised GBCA Green Star PVC credit was released January 14 for a five-week public comment period (open until February 19, 2010), following an extensive 18-month review. The existing PVC credit encourages the minimization of all PVC use in green buildings. However, the review showed that the lifecycle of PVC has changed considerably in the past five years, so the credit revisions encourage the development and use of best practice PVC material in Australia.
The revised PVC credit sets out key best practice criteria to help project teams understand which products have a reduced environmental impact. Under the revised credit, projects will be able to claim two points towards their Green Star rating if the project’s flooring, cable, pipe and conduit—which together account for the majority of PVC use in buildings—meet the GBCA’s Best Practice Guidelines, explains GBCA.
The revision of the PVC credit is part of a wider review of four of the GBCA’s Green Star Materials category credits—Steel, Timber, PVC and Concrete. The results of the Timber credit were released in December 2009 and results from the Steel and Concrete reviews will be released in 2010.
