Australia's leadership in green building initiatives is leaving contemporaries in North America further and further behind, says Green Building Council of Australia chief executive Romilly Madew.
Ms Madew, who has just returned from a tour of green building initiatives in the US and Canada, said Australia was taking an ever greater leadership role in creating sustainable communities.
She singled out Lendlease's Alkimos Beach and Waterbank in Perth as examples of a whole-of-community approach to sustainability compared with the building-by-building approach taken - even across precincts - in North America.
Australia, recognised as the world's green leader by the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark for five consecutive years, leads the world in green building initiatives, according to data from the former McGraw Hill, now known as Dodge Data & Analytics.
"Half of our S&P-ASX 50 companies use Green Star," Ms Madew said. "Thirty per cent of our CBD office space is Green Star-certified and leading companies in the property industry are looking for first-mover advantage to maintain their market leadership."
She said Green Star had come a long way since Perth's GPO refurbishment, which gained it the honour of being one of the first heritage buildings in Australia to achieve a Green Star rating. She identified so-called mega trends underpinning world-leading sustainable buildings, communities and cities that Australia must embrace to stay ahead.
These included the shift from low-carbon to no-carbon; the WELL rating that focused on  well-being of the people inside buildings to boost productivity; and a focus on resilience, extending concern about impact of climate change and rising sea levels on buildings to community access to food and resources, urban sprawl, employment and economic opportunity and social equity. And digital disruption was not a buzzword but a reality. "Smart companies understand that social media is not just a communication platform - it's a trove of data to be mined," Ms Madew said.
 GBCA has joined forces with the World Green Building Council on the Advancing Net Zero to use technology to ensure all new buildings and renovations are net zero by 2030.