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Kings Square One (KS1), a 19-level office tower in Perth’s Kings Square precinct, received a 5 Star Green Star – Office Design v3 rating in 2014. Cundall acted as the environmental-sustainable-design (ESD) consultant and engaged eTool to carry out life-cycle assessments (LCAs). eTool says the LCA work delivered five of KS1’s 70 design points through Green Star’s Material Impacts Credit.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchThat result applies to KS1’s design rating, not a confirmed later as-built certification. It also should not be read as proof that every tower in the four-project precinct achieved five-star Green Star or NABERS ratings. The contemporaneous records describe requirements and targets for the wider development, while identifying KS1 as the first Kings Square project to obtain certification.
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What was actually certified at Kings Square?
The certified project was Kings Square One, commonly abbreviated KS1. The tower stands at the corner of King and Wellington Streets within Perth City Link, the redevelopment area that includes the Kings Square precinct. The Fifth Estate’s report of 13 August 2014 described KS1 as the first project in the precinct to receive a sustainability certification.
The rating was 5 Star Green Star – Office Design v3. “Office Design” identifies the rating stage: the assessment addressed the proposed design rather than verified performance of a completed and occupied building. The sources available for this project do not establish that KS1 later received an as-built Green Star rating, nor do they establish its current ownership or operating condition.
KS1 at a glance
| Item | Reported detail |
|---|---|
| Project | Kings Square One (KS1) |
| Location | Corner of King and Wellington Streets, Perth City Link, Perth |
| Building form | 19-level commercial office tower |
| Office area | 23,156 square metres of A-grade commercial office space |
| Ground-floor retail | 680 square metres |
| Developer | Leighton Properties |
| Green Star result | 5 Star Green Star – Office Design v3 |
| Rating status in the 2014 reports | Design rating; an as-built rating was described as a future target |
The areas and building description come from eTool’s case study, dated 2015. The rating and first-in-precinct distinction come from contemporaneous 2014 reporting.
Who did what: Cundall, eTool and the project team
Cundall was KS1’s ESD consultant. Its role was to coordinate sustainability requirements within the building design and help the project team select measures that could satisfy the Green Star criteria while remaining compatible with the project brief. Cundall engaged eTool as the specialist provider for life-cycle assessment.
eTool’s 13 August 2014 release says its LCA work covered four large commercial buildings over nine months. For KS1, the resulting design received 70 points in total, with five points awarded through the LCA-related Material Impacts Credit. The release presents the assessment as a practical design exercise rather than a calculation performed after the key decisions had already been made.
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Woody Forte, KS1 project manager, described the collaboration this way: “We worked collaboratively with our ESD consultant Cundall and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) experts eTool, to identify and incorporate in the design the most cost effective ESD features to deliver the 5 Star Green Star rating, whilst also ensuring alignment with the project deliverables was maintained.” The statement was published by eTool on 13 August 2014 and refers specifically to the design process.
How the life-cycle assessment contributed points
An LCA evaluates environmental impacts across a building’s life rather than looking only at what happens during construction. In a design assessment, that means comparing the likely impacts of materials and systems over the defined life-cycle boundary, testing alternatives and documenting the assumptions used. The Green Star Material Impacts Credit provided a formal place for that evidence within the rating.
For KS1, eTool attributes five points to the completed LCA under that credit. The five points were part of the 70-point design result; they were not a separate rating, a percentage score or a claim that the building’s entire environmental performance was measured by one study. Other Green Star categories and credits made up the remainder of the design score, but the available project accounts do not itemise those credits.
Oliver Grimaldi, a Cundall senior consultant, said: “LCA was a logical inclusion for all of the projects and has made it easy to get a full understanding of the environmental performance of the design.” His comment explains why the assessment was applied across the development program: it gave the team a common method for comparing whole-of-life effects while designs were still changeable.
What an LCA can change during design
- Material selection: Designers can compare alternatives by their environmental impacts over the stated life-cycle boundary, rather than relying only on an individual product’s upfront attributes.
- System decisions: Structural, façade, services and fit-out options can be assessed as connected choices. A change that lowers impact in one category may alter impacts elsewhere, so the comparison needs a whole-building view.
- Evidence for the rating: A documented assessment gives the Green Star submission a traceable basis for the Material Impacts Credit.
- Cost and delivery checks: The project manager’s statement shows that KS1’s team considered cost effectiveness and alignment with deliverables alongside environmental outcomes.
These are the functions described by the project participants; the published material does not provide KS1’s individual material quantities, modelling assumptions, software inputs or impact totals.
KS1 versus the wider four-building precinct
The eTool release refers to four commercial buildings included in the LCA work. Leighton Property set 5 Star Green Star requirements for all four projects, and the builders named in the release were John Holland, Broad Construction and Probuild. Those facts describe the scope and ambition of the program, not four completed certifications.
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| Question | What the 2014 sources establish |
|---|---|
| How many buildings were in the LCA program? | Four large commercial buildings |
| What Green Star requirement was set? | 5 Star Green Star requirements for all four projects |
| Which project was reported as certified first? | Kings Square One |
| Did the sources confirm four Green Star certifications? | No; they report requirements and identify KS1’s certification |
| Were five-star NABERS ratings confirmed? | No; The Fifth Estate reported them as targets for the four towers |
This distinction matters because a precinct-wide sustainability brief can exist for years before every building reaches the same rating stage. A requirement in a development agreement is not equivalent to a certification issued by the Green Building Council of Australia, and a target for an operational rating is not evidence that the rating was later achieved.
Design rating, construction and as-built certification
Green Star separates design intent from outcomes verified after construction. KS1’s reported result belongs to the design phase. At the time of the eTool announcement, construction was underway, and contemporaneous coverage described an as-built rating as a future target.
A design rating can be valuable because it locks sustainability decisions into documentation before procurement and construction are complete. It can also expose a risk: substitutions, commissioning changes or incomplete implementation may alter the finished building. Only a later assessment using the relevant completion evidence could establish whether the constructed tower matched the rated design.
Accordingly, the defensible historical statement is that KS1 achieved a 5 Star Green Star – Office Design v3 rating in 2014. The reviewed sources do not establish a later as-built result. They also do not provide current operational data, current tenancy, ownership or post-2014 performance.
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- Covers cost implications of green building practices, including initial investments, long-term cost benefits, and current market trends.
- Provides a practical guide to understanding fundamental sustainable design and green building practices.
- Includes a Focused Study Guide that helps readers prepare for the LEED-Green Associate exam.
Why the LCA milestone mattered in 2014
The Fifth Estate characterised KS1 as the first Australian office building to incorporate Green Star’s new life-cycle-assessment points. That description places the project in a transition period: environmental assessment was expanding beyond operational energy and water considerations to include embodied impacts associated with materials and construction decisions.
Using LCA in a commercial office project also required coordination among the developer, ESD consultant, specialist analyst, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, contractors and suppliers. Data had to be available early enough for alternatives to be compared, while the design still had flexibility. eTool’s account of a nine-month assessment across four buildings indicates a program-level approach rather than an isolated exercise for one product.
The significance is therefore methodological as well as numerical. Five points helped KS1 meet its design-rating goal, but the wider contribution was a repeatable way to test environmental consequences before the building was fixed. That is the reason the announcement linked the LCA to “systems thinking” and early decision-making.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Project timeline and contemporaneous evidence
- Design and planning: Leighton Properties established 5 Star Green Star requirements across four commercial projects in the Kings Square program.
- LCA engagement: Cundall, acting as ESD consultant, engaged eTool to assess the projects’ life-cycle impacts.
- Nine-month assessment: eTool reports that the LCA work covered four large commercial buildings.
- KS1 design submission: KS1 received 70 design points, including five from the Material Impacts Credit linked to the LCA.
- 13 August 2014 reporting: eTool published its announcement, and The Fifth Estate reported KS1 as the first Kings Square project to gain sustainability certification.
- Construction phase: Work was underway, with an as-built rating described as a future objective rather than a completed result.
The timeline is deliberately limited to what the cited 2014 and 2015 material records. It does not fill in later project history that those sources do not document.
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Start LCA before major options are fixed
The KS1 account supports involving the LCA team during design, when structural systems, façade concepts, services strategies and material schedules can still change. Running the assessment only after procurement would reduce its ability to influence the design and could leave fewer cost-effective options.
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Connect the assessment to the rating pathway
eTool’s five-point contribution shows the value of mapping the LCA deliverables to a specific Green Star credit. The team knew what evidence the Material Impacts Credit required and could integrate that work into the broader submission instead of treating LCA as a standalone report.
Use a common method across related projects
Applying the assessment to four buildings created a shared benchmark for a precinct-scale program. It can help a developer compare recurring design choices, identify high-impact decisions and transfer lessons between projects. The existence of a common method still does not guarantee identical results; each building has its own geometry, structure, services and procurement.
Keep targets separate from verified outcomes
The distinction between KS1’s achieved design rating and the four towers’ stated NABERS targets is a useful reporting discipline. Project communications should label requirements, targets, design ratings and operational certifications separately so readers can tell what has been measured and what remains prospective.
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- Supported: KS1 was reported as 5 Star Green Star – Office Design v3 in 2014.
- Supported: Cundall was the ESD consultant and eTool performed LCA work.
- Supported: Five of KS1’s 70 design points came from the LCA-related Material Impacts Credit, according to eTool.
- Supported: Four buildings were included in the reported LCA program.
- Not established: That all four buildings received Green Star certification.
- Not established: That the four towers achieved five-star NABERS ratings; those were reported as targets.
- Not established: A later as-built Green Star rating, current ownership, current operation or present-day performance.
Sources and date limits
The primary project announcement is eTool’s “Green Stars for LCA in Perth,” dated 13 August 2014. The contemporaneous independent account is The Fifth Estate’s “Kings Square achieves first sustainability rating for office tower, and an LCA first,” also dated 13 August 2014. Building area and project-description details come from eTool’s “Life Cycle Assessment: Maximise your Green Star rating with eTool LCA,” a case study dated 2015.
Together, these sources support a precise historical account: KS1 earned the design-stage rating, the LCA supplied a defined portion of its points, and the broader precinct was pursuing the same standard without a documented four-project certification result in the material available.
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