Pick up where you left off.
Course Content
Bio-Based Building Materials: Risks, Benefits & Compliance
The Code has no bio-based category. It asks what evidence shows the material does the job.
Evidence of suitability, combustibility and the wall that has to dry. What NCC 2025 asks of a grown material rather than what its carbon claim says, which of the six forms of evidence suits a product, why non-combustible is a test result, and how the rewritten external wall provisions reach monolithic bio-based walls.
Secure card checkout. Tax invoice emailed.
4 modules, 2 case studies, final quiz and certificate.
Introduction and objectives
Why the bio-based label carries no compliance weight, and where these specifications come apart.
What Bio-Based Means, and What the Code Asks Instead
Separate the carbon claim from what the Code asks of the element, and see why timber is the only family with a complete Deemed-to-Satisfy route.
Evidence of Suitability, and What NCC 2025 Moved
Choose among the six forms of evidence, and read a certificate or test report for its scope, its laboratory and its sample.
Combustibility, and the Minor Degree Rule
Treat non-combustible as a test result, apply the assembly rule and the minor degree provisions, and ask for the fire hazard property your provision names.
The Wall That Has to Dry
Settle vapour permeance and the drained and ventilated cavity at concept, and specify a material nobody on the team has built with.
A hempcrete wall and a straw bale house
A non-combustible claim with no test behind it, and a climate zone seven wall that needed a cavity after the window schedule was issued.
Key takeaways
The five points to carry into your next bio-based specification.
Final quiz and certificate
Ten project scenarios across the four learning objectives. Pass and the certificate goes straight into your dashboard.
Intermediate. For people who specify, document or assess bio-based materials on houses and, where their licence reaches it, Class 2 work. Covers evidence of suitability under Part A5, combustibility and fire hazard properties, the NCC 2025 condensation provisions for external walls and roofs, and the specification and project record. It is not fire engineering or facade consulting, and it recommends no products.
Written for the people who put a grown material on the drawings and have to defend it.
Building designers
Bio-based materials arrive through the client and the consultant, and land on your drawings without an evidence path.
Architects
You weigh a material’s carbon story against what the Code asks of the element it sits in.
Building surveyors
You read certificates against their scope and test reports against their sample before you approve a novel wall.
Licensed builders
You install to the conditions in the evidence, and a substitution at tender is a fresh evidence question.
Sustainability consultants
Your embodied carbon advice brings the material in, so the compliance question needs answering early.
Where this hour goes on your record.
National Standard of Competency for Architects (NSCA 2021) performance criteria this course aligns with:
Advice under building codes and standards
Operational and embodied carbon of materials and systems
Materials and construction systems in documentation
Performance standards and whole life carbon
Documentation that complies with codes
| If you are | How it is recorded |
|---|---|
| A building designer | 1 CPD point. Your certificate, the learning outcomes, the module outline and your quiz result are kept in your dashboard, so you can show what you studied if your CPD is audited. |
| An architect | 1 formal CPD point. Aligned with NSCA 2021 performance criteria PC12, PC35, PC39, PC45 and PC46. |
| A building surveyor, builder or sustainability consultant | 1 hour of CPD on bio-based materials under NCC 2025, recorded on your certificate for your registration body, state scheme or professional body. |
CPD On Demand is not a registered training organisation and courses are not accredited by any registration body. Each course is aligned with the relevant competency frameworks and gives you the records to evidence it. CPD rules differ by registration body and state, so check with yours if you are unsure.
Pairs well with.
The Breathable Wall: Understanding Condensation Risks in NCC 2025
The condensation provisions behind Module 4, for every wall, not only grown ones.
Non-Conforming Building Products: Specification Risk, Evidence of Suitability, and Documentation Defence for Building Designers
Evidence of suitability and specification defence for conventional products too.
Designing for Net-Positive Buildings
Where the carbon conversation goes once the compliance question is settled.
Before you enrol.
Carry a grown material from the client’s wish list through certification, in one self-paced hour.
$99, 60 minutes, certificate on completion.