Industry
Commercial
Challenge
Arup's Brisbane office was pursuing the Living Building Challenge, one of the most rigorous sustainability certifications in the world. Every supplier needed to match Arup's own standards for material transparency, and most in the filtered water category couldn't.
Results
Zip HydroTap ranges were specified across multiple kitchens in an award-winning workplace, and Zip Water is now Arup's partner for filtered water across its LBC workplaces in Australia and New Zealand.
Key Product
Product one, Zip HydroTap
Zip Water was the most transparent supplier in this category. The Declare label meant the information wasn't just shared with us, it was made publicly available for the benefit of the broader industry.
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About Arup's Brisbane Office
Arup is a global engineering and design consultancy with a long-standing commitment to sustainable and regenerative design. In Australia and New Zealand, Arup has made the Living Building Challenge its standard for every new office fit out with 50 or more staff, pursuing certification across workplaces in Adelaide, Auckland, Perth and Brisbane.
Its Brisbane office, designed in collaboration with Hassell, received the 2026 Australian Interior Design Award for Workplace Design and has been described as setting the benchmark in sustainable workplace design.
The Challenge
The Living Building Challenge is not a checklist. Developed by the International Living Future Institute, it measures net positive and regenerative outcomes across seven performance areas (place, water, energy, health and happiness, materials, equity and beauty) through mandatory imperatives. Certification requires comprehensive design documentation plus 12 months of operational data.
The materials imperatives are among the most demanding. Arup seeks to understand the full composition and origin of every product on a project, assessing for toxicity, upfront carbon and air quality impact. That meant every supplier on the Brisbane fit out had to meet the same standard Arup set for itself: independently verified, publicly available transparency about what's in their products.
Water is easy to overlook in a sustainability strategy. It sits in the background of a fit out, expected to simply work. But on an LBC project, even the tap is part of the story. Arup needed a filtered water supplier who could show their work, not just claim it, and in this category that was rare.
The Solution
Zip Water became the first in its category to achieve a Declare label, an independently verified, publicly available disclosure of a product's material ingredients, aligned with LBC requirements.
For Arup's sustainability team, that was the differentiator. The transparency wasn't shared privately under NDA; it was published for the benefit of the whole industry, which is exactly what the Living Building Challenge is designed to encourage. Instead of adding to Arup's documentation burden, the Declare label removed friction from the specification process.
At Zip Water, we focus on helping architects, designers and consultants meet evolving sustainability requirements, and achieving a Declare label is one way we provide the transparency needed for projects like this.
Shane Emms, Commercial Sales and Service Director, Zip Water
The fit itself went beyond compliance. Biophilic design runs through the Brisbane workplace, and water plays a deliberate role in it, appearing as both a functional and visual element that supports wellbeing and a sense of connection to the environment. Zip HydroTap ranges, including the 5-in-1 Classic Plus with Arc Mixer in Brushed Nickel, Arc Plus and Classic Plus Brushed Nickel, were specified across multiple kitchens within the project, chosen as much for their material transparency as their performance.
The Declare label meant Zip Water's transparency was public, not private. On an LBC project, that's the difference between a product that can be specified and one that can't.
The Results
Zip Water is now partnered with Arup to support the specification of filtered water solutions across Arup's Living Building Challenge workplace projects in Australia and New Zealand. The Brisbane office is the first demonstration of that partnership: an award-winning, benchmark-setting workplace where Zip HydroTap sits in every kitchen.
Three outcomes stand out:
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Specified on a benchmark project. Zip HydroTap ranges were selected across multiple kitchens in the 2026 Australian Interior Design Award winner for Workplace Design.
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A partnership, not a one-off. The relationship now extends to all of Arup's LBC workplace pursuits across ANZ, a program that already spans four cities.
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Future specification secured. For Arup, the Declare label is a reason to keep choosing Zip on projects to come.
The Declare label will certainly help us keep choosing Zip taps in the future.
Richard Stokes, Sustainability Team Leader, Arup
It's a reminder that sustainability credentials are becoming as important to specification as design and function. Suppliers who can show their work are the ones building lasting relationships with the specifiers who choose them project after project.
A partnership worth celebrating
The Arc Agency has worked alongside Zip Water for a number of years now, from exhibiting at The-Arc Events across Australia and New Zealand to running brand awareness campaigns that put Zip solutions in front of the architects, interior designers and specifiers who shape commercial workplaces. Over that time we've watched the brand invest in the things that matter to specifiers long before they became a requirement, and the Declare label is a good example.
That's what makes this partnership with Arup so satisfying to see. It isn't a product placement. It's a supplier being chosen because it could meet one of the most demanding sustainability standards in the industry, on a project that went on to win the 2026 Australian Interior Design Award for Workplace Design. Stories like this are exactly why we do what we do: connecting suppliers who show their work with the specifiers who need that transparency to deliver better buildings. Congratulations to the Zip Water team, and to Arup and Hassell on a benchmark-setting workplace.
Read more about the Zip Water and Arup partnership here →
zipwater.com
arup.com
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