The International Energy Policy & Programme Evaluation Conference was held on 7-9 June 2016 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The purpose of the conference is to provide a forum for the presentation, critique and discussion of objective evaluations, as well as for experience sharing about evaluation practices. The conference aims at gathering new ideas, inputs for current and upcoming debates, experience feedback and lessons learnt about all the stages of evaluations (preparation, realisation, analysis of results, evaluation use).

The global buildings sector is responsible for 30% of final energy consumption and more than 55% of global electricity demand. Progress towards sustainable buildings is advancing, but improvements are still not keeping up with a growing buildings sector and rising demand for energy services. The buildings and buildings construction sectors combined are responsible for 36% of global final energy consumption and nearly 40% of total direct and indirect CO2 emissions.

Net zero energy building (NZEB) standards have been gaining prominence lately as the next performance target for buildings. However, despite the demonstrated benefits of such building performance across triple bottom-line concepts, Australia is yet to formulate a policy toward adopting a net zero energy building standard.

This chapter provides a review and critique of the development and current status of approaches to improve energy efficiency and broader sustainability in the Australian built environment. The focus is on the minimum building performance requirements set through the National Construction Code—Building Code of Australia, but the chapter also includes other mandatory and voluntary approaches which have been introduced over the past two decades.