Country Road Ballarat setting 'green' trend for nation's fashion retailers

The six-star interiors rating, awarded by the Green Building Council of Australia, takes into consideration energy efficiency, use of recycled materials and innovation.

This is the highest green star rating a building can achieve.

Country Road has been chasing a six-star green rating since before the store's opening in town on October 13, 2023, with all other outlets holding five-star ratings. This is a rating Ballarat has achieved alongside the lifestyle label's Highpoint Shopping Centre store.

The store's design process was focused on repurposing for interiors. In Ballarat, this can be found in recycled polyesters for rugs and fitting room curtains, ocean plastics converted into clothes hangers, recycled yoghurt cups for table tops and mugs that have been broken in transit transformed into terrazzo display shelves.

Green Building Council of Australia chief executive officer Davina Rooney said it was an ambitious undertaking for Country Road to make all its stores five-star in sustainability. For Ballarat to achieve six was "above and beyond".

"Not only is this a first for the fashion retail sector, but it's also a trailblazing example of world leadership from a company reaching new heights of environmentally conscious stores," Ms Rooney said.

Country Road opened in the former state bank building on the corner of Sturt and Camp streets in what had been a move about five years in the making.

Ballarat firm Moloney Architects has played the lead role in rejuvenating the building. The firm's architectural director Michael Moloney said the goal was to transform a "room of '90s aluminium partitions office fit-out" into an experiential retail destination.

Timber was used to help unify the neo-classical building on Sturt Street through to the 1960s brutalist extension.

The site's cathedral ceilings and large windows have also been a popular interior feature for shoppers.