New Zealand’s Earth Building standards are among the most robust in the world.

We need your help to keep them up to date to ensure safe New Zealand homes!

These standards have not been updated since 1998 (20 years ago). Since this time, we have learnt a lot from the earthquake performance, changes to conventional standards, new approaches and technology.  EBANZ has worked on updates for the last 8 years but the recommended changes need to be reviewed by standards New Zealand who have no funding. To keep our buildings as safe as they can be, we need your help.

The Current Challenge

Building with earth has a long history in Aotearoa, some of our oldest surviving buildings are built with earth i.e. Pompallier House in Russell 1842 and Broadgreen House in Nelson 1856 .

Thanks to EBANZ, New Zealand is a pioneer when it comes to Earth Building Standards. No earth buildings built according to the Earth Building Standards failed in the Canterbury and Kaikoura earthquakes. The buildings performed exceedingly well, whilst some built prior to 1998 or not in accordance with the standards suffered serious damage. There has been no reported failure to date of any earth building that fully complies with the earth building standards.

New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world who have developed a comprehensive suite of earth building standards. The standards, first published in 1998, provide Building Consent Authorities (BCA), architects, engineers, builders and home owners all over Aotearoa New Zealand a clear pathway to being granted building consent for earth buildings.

These standards are recognized internationally and are referenced in other countries’ building regulations as a pathway to compliance. Recently they have been used by organisations in the on-going rebuilding of earth buildings in Nepal following the devastating 2015 earthquakes.

By 2010 EBANZ recognised that the standards were at risk of becoming out of date and after consultation with SNZ undertook to start a review process. A committee of expert professionals, was set up to undertake a revision of all three standards.

For the past eight years EBANZ members, many of whom were on the 1998 standards committee, have been working on updating the standards which are now twenty years old.

Over 80 percent of the work has been done. EBANZ has provided near-complete revision drafts for each of the standards. Now they just need to go to a formally constituted SNZ Development Committee for finishing and publishing .

The New Zealand Government has prioritised Kiwibuild for funding due to the urgent need for affordable housing.

This means that there is no funding allocated for Standards New Zealand to formally review the Earth Building revision based on work submitted by EBANZ.

This revision work is urgent as there has been no updating for 20 years.

EBANZ (a non-profit organisation) has spent over $42,000 on research, review, and revision related items, and EBANZ members have volunteered hundreds of hours of time with a value well over $200,000. We need to raise an additional $90,000 to fund the Standards New Zealand review process. This will ensure the revision work already done is not lost and our robust earth building standards are updated.

We would like your help with funding.  To find out more read below. To take action now please chose one of the options on the right.

What does this challenge mean for NZ?

1. If we don’t update the standards our houses will not be as safe as they could be, and getting building consents for earth buildings will become much harder. The new updates will include new research and insights, lessons from both the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes, new ways of doing things, and update current parts of standards that refer to other standards that have been changed.

2. Ensuring the protection of the Earth Building Standards takes us a step closer to developing affordable housing that is good for our planet. Our planet is facing many challenges due to climate change, which is the result of CO2 emissions. The building industry is responsible for a large part of this pollution. The New Zealand Government has made a commitment to build 100,000 houses over the next ten years and it has also made a commitment to reduce GHG emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The embodied CO2 emissions of the materials used to build these 100,000 houses is therefore a critical consideration. Earth buildings have comparatively low embodied CO2 emissions and it is this fact, together with their application for affordable housing, that make the updating of the Earth Buildings standards critical. Many forms of earth building, like adobe brick and cob, are well suited for unskilled people to play a crucial role in building their own houses, a fact that makes them affordable.

The Approach to resolving this challenge

Initially SNZ quoted $150,000 to complete the review the updated standards. After discussions between committee members, EBANZ and SNZ a new streamlined approach was agreed.

This partnership approach will cost less, requiring around 60 percent of the funding originally allowed for by SNZ. Funding is estimated to be around $90,000 with a collaborative approach. EBANZ is a non-profit organisation without funding who has managed to contribute in excess of $242,000 to this initiative already.

We need your help to make this happen 

Here’s How You Can Help, you can either

1. donate directly to our campaign on the right
   
2. donate directly into our campaign bank account: The YIMFY Trust - Earth Building Standards Account number: 38 9016 0306654 01, please use your surname as reference. If you place money directly into the account, please email us your donation details so that we can issue you with a tax certificate and a thank you.
3. and/ or you could help spread the word and raise awareness by sharing this campaign on your social media i.e. facebook, linked in etc

To read more about EBANZ and other frequently asked questions please scroll below the photos.