Global Women member and biosphere scientist Rebecca Mills continues to demonstrate outstanding sustainability leadership with the launch of the Living House project — a collaboration between The Lever Room, Rebecca’s science-based sustainability and carbon impact advisory firm, Global Women partners Fisher & Paykel, and local architecture firm RTA Studio.
The Living House project responds to the shortage of affordable houses in Aotearoa that are also healthy, climate positive, and well-designed. Living Houses are low cost, fast build and climate positive — assembled in just six weeks, the 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom homes cost just $335,000. Each house is a warm, healthy timber home powered by solar energy — making them both an affordable and a sustainable solution for Aotearoa’s future homeowners.
With over thirty years experience working in sustainability, Rebecca is a trailblazer in climate positive innovation. Her firm The Lever Room specialises in carbon measurement and management, having taken a “whole of house” or whole-building life cycle assessment of the Living House project.
Under Rebecca’s strategic leadership, The Lever Room undertook carbon modelling that found each Living House has a carbon balance of -12,056 kgCO₂e, meaning the CO₂e stored in materials and reduced through exporting clean solar energy outweighs its total lifecycle emissions. The carbon model assessment encompassed the building, solar system, energy use and residual export.
We are delighted to congratulate Rebecca, her team at The Lever Room, RTA Studio, and our partners Fisher & Paykel Home Solutions on the success of the project, paving the way for a climate positive future here in Aotearoa.
The Lever Room’s full Living House carbon modelling report is freely available for download at www.theleverroom.com/reports.