Green buildings

Sustainable buildings on campus

New building projects must use UC's UC Design Guidelines 9 Environmentally Sustainable Design. UC is a proud member of the New Zealand Green Building Council.

This page profiles the sustainability features of one the existing green buildings on campus:

• Haere-roa (UCSA building)

Haere-roa 

Opened in July 2019, the UCSA building, Haere-roa, includes student welfare and advocacy spaces, an outdoor amphitheatre overlooking the Ōtakaro Avon River, as well as club, meeting, hospitality, office and event spaces.

In July 2017 the UCSA announced the building's name, Haere-roa, which translates to the longest stream or the long wanderer. It recognises the UCSA building as a space that hosts and welcomes people. The name has been gifted to the UCSA by mana whenua, Ngāi Tūāhuriri and is linked to the Ōtākaro Avon River, which flows past the UCSA site.

Key sustainability features of this building include:

• Haere-roa was built on a brownfield site, replacing the Ilam Student Union building which was damaged during the 2011 earthquakes.
• Haere-roa is heated with renewable energy in the form of a ground-source heat-pump system. These pumps draw stable, latent heat from the ground through the building. 
• The building has interior and exterior ‘Innowood’ cladding (a low VOC formaldehyde emission, recycled product). 
• Carpet tiles are made from recycled material, in no recognisable pattern allowing partial replacements without need for full replacement. 
• 5,782 native plants were planted around Haere-roa between late-2019 and early-2020 in collaboration with the Christchurch City Council’s waterways partnership. This has helped improve the ecological health, indigenous biodiversity and the amenity value of our local urban waterways. 

Low Carbon Energy Strategy 

In 2018 UC launched our Low Carbon Energy Scheme (LCES), a framework for transitioning campus heating systems from fossil fuels to low carbon technologies. The strategy is intended to be delivered as a 15-year program to transition UC’s existing boilers from coal to sustainable woody biomass. In accordance with UC’s 2030 Sustainability Plan, the project is a significant enabler for delivering on UC’s Carbon emission goals.

·         Cut the coal-based carbon footprint emissions by 80% by 2023.

·         Ilam campus Coal Free by 2025

·         Carbon Net Neutral by 2030

Converting boilers to fire biomass typically results in a reduction of peak heating output from the boiler, as biomass fuels such as woodchip and wood pellets have lower energy density than coal. To enable the transition to biomass and address the shortfall in boiler house heating output, a complementary Ground Source Heat Pump system was installed serve the recently constructed Science Precinct buildings with sustainable and efficient low-grade heating (>55°C).

UC has invested significantly in Ground Source Heat Pump technologies, with many of our new buildings such as UCSA’s Haere-roa, Tupuānuku and soon to be completed Tupuarāngi are designed with enhanced thermal envelopes and low-grade heating systems to support Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) technology.

Older legacy buildings on Ilam campus presented a challenge as they do not have the high thermal specifications required for GSHP. The biomass boiler will provide high grade heat to these campus buildings as they are progressively upgraded.

Ilam Boiler Biomass Conversion (2024)

Following the installation of new fuel handling equipment, storage silos and emissions control equipment, UC’s coal fired boilers were re-tuned for operating on woody biomass for the start of the 2024 heating season.

Operating the boilers on sustainably sourced woodchips and wood pellets offset a verified 3,904 t-CO₂e (55% reduction) in the first year of operation and is on track to provide a similar reduction for 2025. With the recent completion of the GSHP systems, and program of system upgrades planned for the summer 2025 shutdown, UC is well on the way to eliminating fossil fuels from campus heating systems 

A subtle success story of the project was the decision to adopt a High Voltage Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) as part of the renewed boiler flue’s which dramatically lowered particulate emissions from operating the boilers. On completion the ESP delivered 93% reduction particle emissions, reducing the impact of Campus operations on local environmental air quality.

The project was a recipient of State Sector Decarbonization funding, and the University has a long history of partnering with EECA to measure emissions and plan for investment in new sustainable energy infrastructure.

Science Precinct Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP, 2025)

This system has been operational since March 2025, providing heating and cooling for five buildings which have been designed or retrofit for lower grade heating via Ground Source Heat Pump’s. The Science and Innovation Precinct GSHP’s are a key step in delivering UC’s transition to low carbon energy sources as the project is expected to achieve a reduction in carbon emissions by approximately 2,000 tonnes annually.

Adopting class leading equipment, UC has installed three new 1,200kW water-cooled heat pumps connected via an indirect ground water system which enables simultaneous heating and cooling with heat recovery. Each heat pump is configured such they can reject or absorb heat from the ground or from the building heating and cooling circuits (moving energy between buildings, rather than rejecting it).

In heating mode, the system extracts heat from either the campus chilled water system or, when there is insufficient cooling demand, uses heat exchangers to extract heat from the ground water bores. When the system is running in cooling mode the heat generated is used to meet the science precinct heating demand, with any excess heat being rejected to back into the ground.

System efficiency is further enhanced with an outdoor air temperature compensation logic which varies the heating water temperature from 55 degrees down to 45 degrees to allow operation at a more energy efficient operating point. A simple, well-established strategy for efficient heating network operation (intended to limit heat losses) which when applied to heat pump technologies (to optimize for refrigerant and compressor type) can have a transformative effect on overall system energy consumption.

Aside from exceptional energy efficiency, the new GSHP’s operate on a future ready R-1234ze refrigerant, a low Global Warming Potential (GWP) hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) with a GWP of less than 1, and is non-toxic, non-flammable, and ozone-friendly.

The Science and Innovation precinct GSHP system delivers reliable, low-carbon heating and cooling—helping UC lead the way in sustainable campus infrastructure.