Building Products Supply Opportunity

For those considering new market opportunities for their building (including plumbing) products, the land down under and the land of the long white cloud may be worth closer examination.

Both Australia and New Zealand import a large percentage of their building products, with a significant proportion of this coming from China. A combination of factors, including COVID lockdowns and container shortages, have conspired recently to create product supply shortages. This in turn has impacted inflation and the cost of construction, with some product prices having increased by up to 40%. This has contributed to building company insolvencies with a resultant impact on creditors, contractors and ultimately consumers.

Both countries have building control systems where the fundamentals are not dissimilar to that of the United States. In the context of building products, the Australian National Construction Code (NCC), New Zealand Building Code (NZBC) and associated administrative regulations, require practitioners who specify and use products for their projects, and building consent authorities (authorities having jurisdiction) who issue building approvals, to satisfy themselves that products are fit to use for their intended purpose. To achieve this, product manufacturers and suppliers need to provide evidence that their products (including systems) are fit for purpose, which can take several forms.

The expectation of the respective building control systems (noting that in Australia there are eight, but with one uniform code – NCC) is that building practitioners will satisfy themselves as to the suitability of the chosen product(s) by using more robust evidence than what may otherwise be available in marketing literature, which as per the NCC and NZBC, would not be regarded as an acceptable form of evidence of suitability.

The NCC and NZBC are both performance-based codes, which include prescriptive standards against which products may be tested and certified. Many of these have been developed by local standards writing bodies and would be deemed as acceptable solutions for compliance.

Being performance-based, however, enables innovative products for which there is no established standard to be treated through a unique examination of its claims against the provisions of the codes to which it seeks to attest compliance. It could also potentially involve certifying equivalence to a reputable international standard if one exists.

ICC-ES and NTA are well positioned to provide certification and testing services for the operational environments in Australia and New Zealand, where Evaluation Service Reports can be accepted as a form of evidence of suitability.

ICC-ES has also obtained accreditation for its plumbing mechanical and fuel gas (PMG) service to issue certificates for the mandatory WaterMark plumbing products certification scheme in Australia. A change to the NCC requiring products to be lead free in compliance with NSF/ANSI/CAN 372 by 1 September 2025, also creates potential opportunities for manufacturers who have had experience in supplying these products to the North American market in recent years.

With the International Code Council having established an office in Australia for the Oceania region, now is a perfect time to consider what opportunities might exist to export into the Australian and New Zealand markets with the confidence of ICC-ES certification and NTA testing. This will also help both these countries diversify their supply lines to avoid some of their current limitations and potentially open up opportunities to other Indo-Pacific nations.