UPDATED: With waste currently top of mind across the country, building owners GPT and Frasers have wasted no time securing a rating under the new NABERS Waste tool, launched last month.
GPT Wholesale Office Fund’s (GWOF) 580 George Street building (formerly the HSBC Centre) received a 3.5 star NABERS rating after diverting 44 per cent of its 397 tonnes of waste generated in 2017, through paper, cardboard, organics, mixed container and e-waste recycling services.
Frasers, meanwhile, rated its Rhodes Corporate Park as a precinct, receiving two ratings – a 3 star rating for its garbage room A, with a 39 per cent recycling rate; and a 2.5 star rating for its garbage room B, at 35 per cent.
The new Waste tool, called one of the “most ambitious sustainability projects” by NSW environment minister Gabrielle Upton at its launch, now features an online platform to which waste data can be uploaded. After 12 months worth of data has been submitted a rating can be granted. Under the old system a 10-day audit was required.
The fundamental calculation NABERS Waste looks at is the recycling rate – what percentage of waste leaving a building is being diverted from landfill. The recycling rate is adjusted by a contamination rate applied to each waste stream, as well as a data quality adjustment, to come to a rating.
The tool is only currently available for office base building ratings (only waste streams managed by the building owner or manager), with stars based on the exceeding the following benchmark rates of operational waste recycling:
- 6 star: > 74 per cent
- 5 stars: > 60 per cent
- 4 stars > 46 per cent
- 3 stars > 32 per cent
- 2 stars > 18 per cent
- 1 star > 4 per cent
- 0 stars > 0-4 per cent
GWOF fund manager Martin Ritchie said the ultimate goal was to have 98 per cent of operational waste generated by tenants diverted from landfill. As discussed in The Fifth Estate’s 2016 Office Waste ebook, more than 94 per cent of office waste generated by offices can be recycled.
GPT head of sustainability & energy Steve Ford said the goal now was to gain NABERS Waste ratings for all offices under its management.
“The NABERS Waste rating follows GPT’s efforts to improve the accuracy of data used to measure the amount waste recycled so that we genuinely understand what is happening to materials that our tenants dispose of and make the best decisions with that information,” he said.
The tool is expected to be available for whole office buildings and shopping centres by December 2018.
Frasers sustainability manager – corporate and investment property Marine Calmettes said the company was looking at trialling the shopping centre tool for the retail component of Central Park in Sydney.