NSW is providing green leadership and sustainable innovation for Australia’s commercial and public buildings and the UK will now be adopting our National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) program to help boost their buildings’ environmental sustainability.
NSW is providing green leadership and sustainable innovation for Australia’s commercial and public buildings and the UK will now be adopting our National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) program to help boost their buildings’ environmental sustainability.
Office of Environment and Heritage’s NABERS Director, Carlos Flores, said the system is one of Australia’s largest and most successful sustainability programs, which aims to reduce the consumption of energy and water and lessen the amount of waste sent to landfill.
“Buildings use 40% of the world’s energy, produce 40% of the world’s carbon emissions and use 20% of the world’s available drinking water,” Mr Flores said said.
“NABERS can identify a building’s environmental impact and help its owners and operators make the building more sustainable and contribute to a healthier environment.
“The NSW led program has already saved more than $790M in energy and water bills, while preventing the release of over 5.4 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
“In Australia more than 3,160 office buildings have already been certified since 2000 including, 16 six star rated buildings certified in FY2019, with eight in Sydney.
“It’s great news that OEH has signed a three-year partnership with the UK’s Better Building Partnership (BBP) to expand the successful NABERS program.
“This partnership will improve the sustainability of existing and new UK buildings, covering 30 commercial property owners managing over £200 billion in building assets.
“The OEH and BBP Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) enables work on adapting, trailing and implementing NABERS Energy for Offices program for buildings in the UK to be certified and a possible longer-term licensing arrangement with the UK government.
“Australian building sustainability companies will be able to export their NABERS assessment and building management services to UK companies. Buildings certified in the UK will bring additional revenue to OEH, for reinvestment in Australian NABERS operations.”
BBP is a not-for-profit organisation, whose main goal is to improve the sustainability of existing building stock in the UK. The BBP will largely fund the development costs of NABERS UK.
Better Buildings Partnership CEO Sarah Ratcliffe said the BBP is delighted to enter into this ground-breaking partnership which focuses on operational outcomes delivering better buildings and driving market transformation.
NABERS started in NSW in 1998, expanding to New Zealand, India, Hong Kong and the UK.
