by Brianna Crandall — January 10, 2011—Grocon’s Pixel building in Melbourne, Australia has earned Australia’s first Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Full Project certification, making it the first commercial office building outside Britain to earn full project certification, and an international showcase for responsibly sourced wood as a green building material.
To earn FSC Full Project certification, builders are required to source at least half of their wood from sources that are FSC certified or verified as post-consumer reclaimed, and the remaining wood used in the project must be verified as FSC Controlled Wood or other reclaimed wood. For The Pixel Building, Grocon sourced sixty percent of its wood from FSC Certified responsibly managed forests with the balance of wood from post-consumer reclaimed and other reclaimed sources.
Completed in July 2010, the Pixel building claims multiple other green building firsts. It is the first carbon neutral building built in Australia, featuring wind turbines and photovoltaic cells designed to generate over time more energy on-site than required for its construction and operation.
Moreover, the building was the first to achieve a perfect score under the Green Building Council of Australia’s Green Star Rating System (Office Design v3) and was designed to earn the highest Platinum score under LEED in the world. Pixel has set the bar for green building in Australia and ranks among the world’s most innovative green buildings, says Scientific Certification Systems, the independent third party that conducted the assessment.
