Navigating Low-Carbon Building Design: Journeys of France and New Zealand

Event details

When: 7:30pm, Wednesday 20th August, 2025

Speakers: Anais Guennoc and Julio Ortiz

Location: online only

Zoom link:  https://aut.zoom.us/j/95260169735

Abstract

As awareness on the climate change crisis rises internationally and as the reduction of carbon emissions is identified as a necessary path to a sustainable future, the construction sector, being a significant contributor to carbon emissions, is expected to play a pivotal role in leading change.

In January 2022, the Environmental Regulation RE2020 came into force in France, making it one of the first countries to adopt legislation with regulatory thresholds on whole-of-life embodied carbon for buildings. Following an overview of the French journey to RE2020 and an outline of the regulation’s framework, thoughts are shared on opportunities for New Zealand to accelerate change on low carbon design considering the country’s cultural and organisational specificities.

About Anais Guennoc

Anais is a Christchurch-based structural engineer with over 15 years of experience in the building industry. She completed her master’s degree in civil engineering in 2009 in France where she started her career before moving to New Zealand in 2014. She worked on an array of residential, educational, industrial and commercial projects, varied in size, cost and complexity. Her dedication to structural engineering is driven by a profound conviction that the discipline is integral to the creation of resilient and flourishing communities and she enjoys the challenge of finding sustainable, human-centred, innovative, yet practical solutions to complex engineering problems.

About Julio Ortiz

Julio, originally from Chile, is the Sustainable Structures Lead at TM Consultants and a member of the SESOC Sustainable Design Task Force. With over a decade of experience, he is committed to advancing sustainable design across the engineering and construction sectors in New Zealand and abroad.