The Joint Committee
The Joint Committee for Seismic Assessment and Retrofit of Existing Buildings comprises representatives from the five partner organisations originally engaged in the development of the 2017 seismic assessment guidelines.
This committee includes representatives from The Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake, the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, and the technical societies (NZGS, NZSEE, SESOC). It is responsible for the joint oversight of the system used to assess, communicate, manage and mitigate seismic risk in existing buildings. The Joint Committee reviews how the guidelines are functioning in practice, identifies areas that require further input and development, and either advises on or assists in the development of proposals for work programmes that contribute towards these objectives.
If you or your organisation has or knows of a resource that fits the criteria of this platform, feel free to get in touch, or explore our resources below.
Our Vision Statement
The Joint Committee’s Vision is that:
- Seismic retrofits are being undertaken when necessary to reduce our seismic risk over time while limiting unnecessary disruption, demolitions and carbon impacts, promoting continued use or re-use of buildings.
- Decisions on retrofitting are informed by an appropriate understanding of seismic risk and are aligned with longer term asset planning.
- Seismic assessment and retrofit guidelines help engineers focus on the most critical vulnerabilities in a building, serve the needs of the market and regulation, and evolve through a stable ongoing cycle allowing new knowledge and improvements to be included in a predictable manner, including the consideration of objectives beyond life safety.
- Engineers are supported in the implementation of Seismic Assessment and Retrofit Guidelines through a range of training and information sharing strategies, including tools for risk communication to manage unnecessary vacating of buildings.
- Society is informed about the level of risk posed by existing buildings.
Our updates
2025 Updates to the Non-EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines
Several sections of the Seismic Assessment Guidelines are being updated to reflect the results of new research and industry input from use of the Guidelines over the past eight years.
In July 2024, the Joint Committee and Engineering New Zealand consulted the engineering sector on proposed changes to the Seismic Assessments of Existing Buildings – Technical Guidelines for Engineering Assessments (Seismic Assessment Guidelines) used for non-EPB assessments. These changes incorporate the latest understanding on how concrete buildings perform in earthquakes, including research conducted since the release of the Yellow Chapter update in 2018.
Following the consultation process, the Joint Committee reviewed feedback on the proposed changes. The final updated guidelines will be released in two phases:
- A revised Section C5 (and associated changes in sections C1, C2, C3 and C7) released in March 2025.
- Final Non-EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines, incorporating updates to other sections related to geotechnical assessments, unreinforced masonry, and reinforced masonry, are intended to be published by the end of 2025.
The revised Section C5, and associated changes in C1, C2, C3, and C7, are now available for use in the Resources section of this website.
2025 Joint Committee Work Programme
The Joint Committee has been leading a series of critical pieces of work to help support practitioners and improve the management of seismic risk of existing buildings.
2025 stands to be a major year for the Joint Committee as it starts releasing the outputs from some of its major work programmes. In the near future, these include:
- 2025 updates to the non-EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines for use outside the Earthquake-Prone Building (EPB) System,
- A statement of research needs to help guide future research in seismic assessment and retrofit, and
- Targeted reports on the assessment of “significant life safety hazards” and assessment review to support practitioners engaged in seismic assessment and retrofit.
In addition, the Joint Committee is continuing work on several other work programmes for the sector, such as:
- Guidelines for seismic retrofit guidelines to complement the seismic assessment guidelines,
- Specific guidance for certain building typologies (URM, low-rise buildings, etc).
Moving forward, Design Resilience will be one of the primary platforms for the release of Joint Committee publications and resources.
Become a contributor
The resources that are presented on this platform are selected by the Advisory Group, and must balance a variety of criteria.
Firstly, this platform specifically shares non-regulatory resources, as there are already well-established and well-defined sources of regulatory information elsewhere. Additionally, the resources available here have been agreed to be of sufficiently wide use and benefit to the building sector, and to have rigorous technical or empirical foundations.
If you are looking for something you don’t see here, or you want to learn more about the Advisory Group and how resources are selected, feel free to contact us.
