When NABERS director Magali Wardle sits down to run through her favourite highlights from the newly released NABERS Sustainable Portfolio Index, you can sense the deliberate steady leadership that underpinned the outstanding success of NABERS Energy.
In the same way that the rating tool stormed the commercial property world’s notion of sustainability and created global impact, the SPI has penetrated even wider and deeper into what you might call the DNA of sustainable property in Australia.
In its eight years since launch, says Wardle, the SPI has moved from an exciting benchmarking opportunity for competitive property owners to a tool that allows a much broader range of participants to get involved and compete, if not with each other for top spot, then with themselves to demonstrate year on year improvement.
This year saw 31 companies taking part with a growth in floor space covered from 6.3 million square metres to 8.2 million sq m, with many of the top performers – Charter Hall, Cbus, Dexus, GPT, IFM Investors, Investa, Property and Development NSW, Rest Direct Property Holdings, and Vision Super, scoring equally in the tallies.
The fledgling hotel sector also gained a new participant with Pro-Invest Group joining CapitaLand and Schwartz Family.
But despite the clear adoption of the Index by the big end of town, it’s probably the new breed of entrant that Wardle might admit makes her most chuffed.
These are not the companies hellbent on taking on the behemoths of the industry, but rather the middle market companies more intent on “competing against themselves” for improvement.
The SPI, she says, has moved from “crème de la crème, to a much broader range of participants”.
The Index has also shape shifted to some extent, with expanded criteria that now includes energy, water, waste and that latest priority for tenants, indoor environment quality.
Finance is watching
And the world of finance is taking note. It’s increasingly using NABERS performance metrics to allocate cheaper green finance.
“NABERS is referenced in the Australian Sustainable Finance Taxonomy and is increasingly used to support green lending and reporting frameworks, creating a more direct connection between building performance and capital,” Wardle says.
Cbus property and Charter Hall, which were both top performers in the 2026 SPI, both use NABERS ratings to underpin sustainability related finance link.
“Charter Hall uses independent rating tools like NABERS to verify performance and to focus on continuous improvement,” says group head of ESG, Andrew Cole on the NABERS website.
As the world grows increasingly concerned about climate and sustainability, this focus on measurable performance from the capital markets is set to continue.
For many analysts, strong green performance in property is a proxy for quality.
All round performance lift
Wardle says there’s been a sharpened interest in high performance all round. “One of the standouts is that there are so many ties for the top position across the board.
“We’re seeing several portfolios achieving very highly in different areas, whether that’s water efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor environment quality or waste.
“I think that’s a great testament to the leadership that’s shown by the Australian property industry and that commitment to continuous improvement and transparency along the way as well.”
There’s a clear alignment, she says, between performance measurement and institutional portfolio management.
“We are calling this a ‘multi-metric approach’ – and it is gaining momentum.”
Indoor air quality
Among one of the hottest ticket items fuelling leadership is the growing importance of indoor air quality for both comfort and health.
Tenants are driving this and it’s understandable.
Australians spend a whopping 90 per cent of their time indoors, notes Wardle, and adds that there’s a financial benefit on offer. Not to mention that tenant leases frequently stipulate that temperatures remain within a particular bandwidth, with financial implications if they don’t.
“We’re seeing more and more buildings achieving six stars in NABERS indoor Environment.”
Wardle says it’s part of the maturation of the sustainability eco-system that “goes beyond greenhouse gas emissions”.
Waste is another growing opportunity
Waste is a notoriously difficult challenge to manage for offices. In large part this is because it relies on tenant behaviour – and the tricky issue of how to change ingrained habits.
You can achieve a lot by minimising waste – and this is great contribution to a circular economy, but there’s also the sorting to worry about because it’s extremely easy to contaminate waste streams with one incorrect item spoiling an entire bin of otherwise carefully sorted bin slated for recycling or repurposing.
As with other many other elements of improved sustainability the best path to overall industry performance is often incremental improvement and the ability to measure this. So NABERS has now developed separate tiers that can each identify best-in- class practice, so offices can now measure against themselves.
This year we’ve seen the highest waste portfolio rating of 5.1 achieved by two portfolios, CBUS Property and Rest Direct Property Holding Trust. 307 assets were rated this year a 33 per cent increase on last year.
Energy – can the top tier companies get any more efficient?
As many observers have noted the top tier companies in Australia are very high performers in terms of energy efficiency, so can they get any better – and would the effort be worthwhile?
What they can get better at, says Wardle is the source of energy they’re using.
“It’s the next challenge around electrification. So, we introduced the renewable energy indicator into our rating.
“What this does is give really transparent information about the source of the energy that’s consumed on site.
“It tells you how much comes from electricity, how much comes from onsite fossil fuels like gas or diesel, and of the electricity that’s used actually it tells you how much of that comes from renewable sources as well.
“So there’s always room for improvement.”
