Planning and ESD · Before the building permit
Promises you can keep.
Councils and planning authorities increasingly ask for sustainability reports with a planning application, long before the building permit. We prepare them with the same building physics, and the same team, that takes the project through to compliance.
01Reports we prepare
For the planning application, not the permit.
Planning-stage reports set out how a development will perform before it is designed in detail. Each council asks for something different, so we confirm what yours expects before we start.
Green Star assessments
Green Star pathways and assessments, from Green Star Accredited Professionals on our staff, for projects that commit to a rating or are required to achieve one.
Green StarESD reports
Environmentally sustainable design reports for planning applications, setting out the project’s commitments on energy, water, comfort, materials and more.
ESDSustainable Design Assessment Reports
The SDA that Victorian councils ask for under the SDAPP framework, and the SDAR that DevelopmentWA can require in its redevelopment areas to show a design will reach the Green Star rating its Green Building policy sets.
SDA · SDARBESS assessments
Built Environment Sustainability Scorecard assessments, where a council asks for one.
BESSDaylight studies
Daylight modelling for planning applications, where a council’s policy or a rating tool calls for it.
DaylightLife cycle assessments
Whole-building life cycle assessments (LCA) to EN 15978 that measure a design’s embodied carbon, the emissions from making its materials and building it, while the design can still change. More on embodied carbon
LCAOther planning reports
The other energy and sustainability reports a planning authority asks for, scoped to its policy.
Planning
02Embodied carbon
The carbon built in is being counted.
Energy ratings count the carbon a building emits once it’s running. Embodied carbon is the rest: the emissions from making its materials and putting it together. As buildings get more efficient to run, it becomes a bigger share of the total.
NSW already counts it. Since 1 October 2023, BASIX has required new homes to calculate and report their embodied emissions, and new non-residential developments report theirs too. There’s no target yet, but NSW says the reporting will inform benchmarks and future targets. NABERS now rates embodied carbon, Green Star rewards cutting upfront carbon, and the ABCB has published a handbook for commercial buildings.
Our life cycle assessments follow EN 15978. They measure a design’s embodied carbon while it can still change, and show which materials and systems cut it most. We also prepare the reporting each scheme asks for: BASIX’s embodied emissions for NSW homes, NSW’s reporting for non-residential developments, NABERS Embodied Carbon ratings and Green Star’s upfront carbon credit.
03Why it matters
The promise made at planning becomes a condition.
A sustainability commitment in a planning application often becomes a condition of the approval. Made without the building physics, it can be costly to meet at building permit, or hard to meet at all. Because we deliver the building-permit compliance too, the commitments in our reports are made with that stage in view.
Work done once
The modelling behind a planning report carries through to the building permit wherever it can.
Targets that hold
Commitments set with the building physics in view, not picked from a checklist.
One team
Planning, design, building permit and construction, to one standard.
04How it works
- 01
Send the plans
The plans, and the council’s requirements or the conditions you’ve been given.
- 02
Scope and fee
We confirm which reports and tools the council expects, and send a fee.
- 03
The report
Prepared with the building permit in view, ready to lodge with your application.
- 04
Through to permit
When the design reaches the building permit, the same team delivers the compliance.
Planning and ESD
Start compliance at planning.
Send the plans and the council’s requirements. We reply within 24 hours.