NABERS
NABERS is a performance based national sustainability rating scheme which measures and rates energy efficiency, water efficiency, waste management efficiency and indoor environment quality of certain types of existing buildings. NABERS is a voluntary rating scheme but some rating types are now part of the CBD scheme and are compulsory. A NABERS certificate is a formal certificate of the building's performance which is valid for 12 months and can be used for promotional, benchmarking and improvement purposed.
NABERS
Overview of NABERS
National Australian Built Environment Rating System or NABERS is a rating scheme developed and administered by the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change which is referred to as the National Administrator in NABERS terminology. NABERS is a rating scheme for the sustainability performance of existing buildings based on the measurements and indices of actual operational impacts of the building in different areas of sustainability. NABERS now incorporates and supersedes the former ABGR rating scheme which is renamed to the NABERS energy for offices with major upgrades.
At this time NABERS is a voluntary rating system but with the introduction of CBD and its implementation from 1st November 2010 the NABERS energy base or whole building for offices is a compulsory component of a BEEC and therefore is required by certain types of office buildings. You can read more about this at our BEEC page.
NABERS currently assesses the performance of Office, Hotel, Homes and Shopping Centres and the metrics addressed for sustainability performance of the building are energy consumption, water consumption, waste management and indoor environment quality. More NABERS tools are under development for hospitals, hotels and schools. Rating tools for Schools, Hospitals and Transport are currently being developed by the National Administrator.
NABERS ratings are shown in form of star ratings for each metric of the building being assessed. NABERS star ratings range from 1 to 5 stars with half star increments where 2.5 star NABERS rated building in a particular area represents the industry's average performance for that type of building.
NABERS offers noticeable marketing and promotional capacity to a building and its associated owner since it provides the owners, tenants and occupants of the building with an easy to understand measurement of the building's sustainability performance in relation to the rest of the buildings in that particular industry sector. If a building plans to advertise its NABERS performance for promotional purposes a formal NABERS certificate must be obtained from the NSW DECC. Only a NABERS Accredited Assessor can register and obtain a formal NABERS certificate for a building. a NABERS certificate can be used to disclose the sustainability performance of the building to interested parties like the required component of the CBD scheme, establish and enhance commercial relations, provide improvement opportunities and to make informed decisions with regard to the actual performance of the building for benchmarking purposes.
The issued NABERS certificate is valid for 12 months and after the 12 month period the certificate must be renewed or the building owner must stop advertising the performance rating of the building in the advertisement and promotional materials.
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