Wollongong City Council chambers is the only 30 year old building to be awarded a top sustainability rating in Australia.
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The Green Building Council of Australia has given the Burelli Street administration building a Six Star Green Star performance rating.
No other building of 32 years old has achieved the rating.
Council staff have worked to reduce the building's energy and water consumption for the past 15 years.
Acting Lord Mayor Cr David Brown said the building was now managed in a way that saved "considerable money on our energy consumption, our water costs, as well as finding ways to make each area of the building more sustainable".
"In fact we are also using these learnings and transporting them into other areas where council has large energy consumption such as our leisure centres and community centres.
"We in council are proud to be at the forefront of sustainability for this large administration building and especially pleased that we are now able to save a substantial amount on maintenance and service costs because of the innovative approaches we have taken in sustainable techniques and management of this building."
Council achieved Australia's first Five Star Green Star Performance rating from the Green Building Council of Australia in 2015.
In 2017, the council installed sustainable and tuneable lighting systems with the installation of Eagle Indigo Maestro Beta luminaires and an Organic Response lighting control.
Introducing this sustainable feature, along with other improvements, helped council reduce the administration building's annual consumption of electricity by more than 200,000 kWh and subsequently full fuel emissions have fallen by 184 tonnes per year.
In further savings the lights are only operating at 40 to 50 per cent of their rated outputs, which will increase their longevity.
If council did not reduce its electricity consumption below its 2007-08 levels then it would be paying an estimated $250,000 more each year for electricity.
Water efficiency measures such as water tanks and efficient fixtures in toilets and other areas are saving about $30,000 per year.
The electricity and water saving measures helped council to maintain its overall financial sustainability and its capacity to re-invest these funds into projects and services that benefit the community.
The council has initiated other sustainable measures through remediation and refurbishment works at centres.
These include solar panels on the Dapto Ribbonwood Centre, new lighting, energy efficient air conditioning and solar panels at the Beaton Park Leisure Centre.
