The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) has a set of building rating tools known as Green Star which has achieved widespread acceptance by developers and governments to assess and rate the environmental performance of buildings. These tools were introduced in 2003 with a PVC minimisation clause that awarded points for reducing the value of PVC products used in building.

In late 2007, the GBCA commenced a stakeholder engagement process to review the PVC minimisation credit. In 2009 the GBCA established an Expert Reference Panel to systematically review Australian and international information relating to the PVC life cycle.

The review released in January 2010, is detailed in the GBCA report “Literature Review and Best Practice Guidelines for the Life Cycle of PVC Building Products”. The review included input from some 40 Australian and international organisations and authors, including such bodies as the US Green Building Council, Environment Australia, State and Federal government environment departments, the European Commission and the World Health Organisation.

The report found that significant achievements had been made within the PVC industry in Australia in recent years...read more