NABERS Rating – What Can You Expect in 2024

1. NABERS Rating – What Can You Expect in 2024? As the world heads into 2024, the Australian construction industry is on the verge of transformation, marked by substantial growth. The country’s goal to achieve net zero carbon will continue to dominate the agenda, with the government adopting regulations or upgrading existing schemes necessary to reach its sustainability targets. The NABERS Rating system is one such vital building’s environmental performance rating system that can see some changes in the upcoming year. NABERS is used predominantly to benchmark and report a building’s performance and offers ratings for energy, water, and the indoor environment. This article discusses what you can expect from the NABERS rating system in 2024. What is NABERS? NABERS is a standardised building rating system abbreviated for the National Australian Built Environment Rating System.

2. It’s a benchmark used to assess a building’s green credentials. Professional assessors specialised in NABERS evaluate the building’s capacity to operate with optimal energy efficiency. The energy efficiency rating system provides a star rating out of 6. NABERS rating, ranging from zero to six stars, represents a spectrum from poor to market-leading performance. A building with a NABERS Rating of six stars shows that the building’s energy efficiency is higher and greenhouse emission is less than that of a five-star rated building. Although these stars reflect an ‘average’ rating, they represent a good base level. It is why a tenant or buyer looks at the NABERS star ratings when considering a residential or commercial building in Australia. NABERS measures the following areas in a building: ● Energy efficiency ● Waste management ● Water consumption and usage ● Indoor environment quality (including natural sunlight and air quality) ● Overall environmental impact The Importance of NABERS Every commercial or residential building impacts the environment regardless of its physical footprint. Waste disposal, greenhouse gas emissions, and water usage significantly contribute to the environmental impact left by buildings, with the built environment contributing approximately 40% of global CO2 emissions. The following points discuss the importance of NABERS rating: ● Tracking NABERS energy, water, waste management, and indoor air quality ratings will influence developers to design new buildings while considering sustainability. Moreover, homeowners will be encouraged to upgrade the facilities and assets in their homes to become more energy-efficient ones. ● A NABERS rating provides the foundation to improve building and tenancy activity to achieve better sustainability performance. Regular NABERS assessments will expose the weaknesses and areas of improvement in a building. ● In addition to reduced environmental impact, improved NABERS rating will also help reduce energy consumption and utility bills, resulting in substantial financial savings and investments in efficiency performance.

3. These points highlight what NABERS helped Australia achieve in 2023: ● 26% increase in offices with NABERS indoor environment ratings ● 18% increase in shopping centres with repeat ratings ● 21% growth in Sustainable Portfolios Index ratings ● 27% increase in data centres rated ● 85% of survey respondents agreed that NABERS is the right approach to measure embodied carbon. ● 200% growth in offices with a NABERS water rating of five or more stars. What Can You Expect from the NABERS Rating System in 2024? NABERS can expand to more building sectors in 2024: NABERS set out to tackle embodied carbon According to a survey, 85% of respondents agreed that the NABERS rating system should tackle embodied carbon. Embodied carbon is a complex and interconnected global issue with several competing interests and priorities, making collaboration across the value chain a mission critical. NABERS is already working with the GBCA and collaborating with the Australian government and the property, building, and construction industry to develop a standard to measure, compare, and verify embodied carbon in new buildings and major refurbishments. Project teams can set targets and limits using a standard method to measure embodied carbon. Furthermore, this standard will allow the country to harness the collective power of the building sector to elevate the demand for low-carbon design practices and construction materials. The NABERS team has started developing the rating tool and plans to launch NABERS for embodied carbon in mid-2024. Classrooms to implement NABERS ratings for schools Australia is home to over 9,600 schools, and each will soon be able to achieve NABERS energy and water ratings. The NABERS team is working hard to design a robust methodology that schools can use to measure, manage, and improve their sustainability performance. This year, the NABERS team collaborated with several state and territory education departments to develop a low-cost and effective portfolio-style tool. In addition, they consulted leaders from various private and systematic schools, education peak bodies, and industry experts through working groups.

4. The benchmarks are based on an enormous data set collected from 7,940 schools in diverse climatic zones. Pilot ratings are progressing across 45+ schools, with the portfolio-style tool planned to be launched at the end of 2023. Boutiques to big box retail stores planning to sign up for NABERS ratings Although shopping centres have been using NABERS to measure their energy efficiency performance since 2010, tens of thousands of retail stores still fall outside the NABERS scope. To accelerate the decarbonisation efforts of the retail sector, the NABERS team is designing a new NABERS energy rating tool, particularly for retail stores. 25+ retail organisations and peak bodies joined the NABERS Accelerate program to accelerate the NABERS Rating tool development process. The NABERS team have collected data from 4,000+ diverse retail stores to create a robust benchmark. The data set covers everything from department stores within shopping complexes to big box retail and small specialty shops. It’s estimated that the NABERS energy rating tool will be launched in 2024. To wrap up it all In 2024, the world will increasingly focus on addressing climate change and environmental sustainability. The built environment is under greater scrutiny to play its part in reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the buildings’ impact on the environment. Australian authorities have implemented stringent regulations and schemes to promote sustainability in the construction and building sector. One such initiative is the NABERS rating system, which covers NABERS energy, waste management, indoor environment quality, and NABERS water rating. With Australia’s increased focus on creating a sustainable built environment, the NABERS team plans to expand the NABERS rating system to the above-discussed building sectors in 2024.

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