NABERS, the environmental rating tool that has transformed the Australian property industry, driving greater sustainability, continues to rock the market with strong growth, and impact in key sectors of the built environment including plans for a tool to track embodied carbon, its newly released annual report shows.

Riding on the strength of its successful overseas export to the UK and New Zealand and now sharing some of its learnings with Germany, the organisation that produces a range of environmental rating tools can boast 9.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions saved over two decades. 

And the growth continues. In the past 12 months the National Australian Built Environment Rating System, managed by the NSW government on behalf of the federal, state and territory governments of Australia, has added 14 per cent to its customer base.

The rating tool, which measures a building’s energy efficiency, carbon emissions, water consumption, and waste produced, provides a benchmark for property owners, developers and managers to compare to similar buildings. 

In addition to a growth in total customers, the annual report showed there was a 12.5 per cent growth in shopping centre ratings, a 72 per cent increase in waste for offices ratings, a 81 per cent increase in carbon neutral ratings, a 34 per cent increase in indoor environment ratings, and 12.5 per cent increase in non-mandated ratings. 

Director Carlos Flores said the report shows that the achievements of the past year have “laid the foundations for an industry moving towards decarbonisation at speed and scale”. 

Aged care, industrial and waste added

This year, the ratings tool increased non-mandated ratings, by expanding into two new sectors; residential aged care and retirement living. It also developed new rating tools for warehouses and cold stores. 

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water funded the expansion.

Martin Brower Wetherill Park facility was one of the first buildings to participate in the industrial pilot project, achieving a 4.5 Star NABERS Energy rating for its warehouse.

In developing the residential aged care and retirement living rating tool, more than 48 aged care organisations with over 300 facilities were involved, and the benchmarks were tested on 17 facilities during the pilot phase.

Since the launch, 36 NABERS Energy ratings and 31 NABERS Water ratings were completed for the aged care sector, and 70 assessors were trained and accredited. 

NABERS Waste verification is also now available for the aged care and industrial sectors, apartment buildings, corrective services, data centres, hotels, office tenancies, and overseas buildings.

The new verification tool helps owners compare their building’s waste performance to the industry benchmark. 

It aims to reduce the estimated 74.1 million tonnes of waste Australia produces every year, of which nearly 22 million tonnes were produced by the commercial and industrial buildings sector.

Schools, retail to come soon

To help drive down energy, emissions and water use across more sectors, NABERS is expanding to include schools and retail stores. 

Stakeholder consultation is underway to gather data from government, systemic and independent schools. Working groups for school stakeholders will be held in late 2022, with ratings tools released in mid-2023.

For retail stores, data gathering is underway for subcategories from big box retail to department stores, outlets within shopping centres and street-facing stores. An advisory panel will be established early next year with the rating tool slated for release in the 2023 financial year.

The Renewable Energy Indicator adds extra transparency

In early 2023 the initiative will launch the Renewable Energy Indicator (REI) that will soon be included in every NABERS Energy rating (and displayed on every NABERS Energy certificate) without additional cost. 

The REI will recognise and reward the generation and purchase of renewable energy – disclosing the proportion of renewable energy used in a building on its NABERS rating certificate.

It was developed via a pilot program over the past year, with 10 buildings taking part. 

The next step – embodied carbon

NABERS is currently working with industry and governments across Australia to develop a new framework to measure, compare and improve embodied carbon in new buildings.

Embodied carbon could represent as much as 85 per cent of Australia’s built environment emissions by 2050, so the new framework aims to boost transparency, enhance reporting and create demand for low carbon construction materials.

The initiative engaged with more than 150 industry practitioners, academics, policymakers and industry association leaders, from nearly 100 organisations, to understand obstacles and opportunities in the embodied carbon space. 

International expansion 

To help progress the goal of net zero, NABERS has expanded internationally in the UK and New Zealand, and released a new international guide in response to interest from a range of markets, most notably Germany, Energy efficiency in commercial buildings.

In July 2022, at an event hosted by the Better Buildings Partnership in London, NABERS director Carlos Flores announced NABERS UK’s expansion to offer whole building and tenancy options.

Also in July 2022, Toronto Square in Leeds became the first office building certified under the NABERS UK rating tool, achieving a 4.5 Star Energy rating. 

New Zealand’s NABERSNZ scheme was created a decade ago in partnership with the New Zealand Government’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, and is administered by the New Zealand Green Building Council.

But in the past year, energy ratings of offices grew by 81 per cent – from 58 to 105 ratings certified. The growth can be attributed to the introduction of procurement requirements by the New Zealand Government, which now requires a NABERSNZ rating of 4 stars or higher when public sector agencies lease offices of 2000 square metres or more. 

An energy and water rating for hospitals is currently in development and due for completion in 2023.

Partnerships and training 

The NSW government’s Accelerating Net Zero Buildings energy efficiency program will use NABERS ratings to help reduce energy use in buildings, providing financial incentives for 44 medium and large buildings to obtain NABERS energy efficiency ratings. 

All of NABERS training is now available online and a large portion is freely accessible to support the growing number of sectors and building types rated by NABERS.

In June 2022 NABERS held its fifth conference – and biggest conference yet – more than 1400 people registered to learn how buildings can lead the way towards a circular, net zero, sustainable economy. The conference can be viewed here.

The Sustainable Finance Criteria was released in June to help banks, investors, lenders and building owners structure sustainable finance transactions. The criteria sets out three methods to demonstrate eligibility for a green loan.

NABERS is also undertaking a project funded by the Australian Government with engagement from state governments to reduce the performance gap between designed energy efficiency and actual operation in commercial buildings. This initiative aims to increase awareness of NABERS by local government planners and sustainability professionals and demonstrate how NABERS can be incorporated into local planning controls.