NZ advised to keep scheme voluntary
THE energy expert who developed the tools for what became the National Australian Built Environment Rating System (Nabers) says the New Zealand scheme should remain voluntary while it builds market acceptance.
Nabers began its life as a voluntary scheme across the Tasman, but became mandatory last year. It has significantly improved energy efficiency in commercial buildings in Australia, providing in-operation benchmarks for offices, hotels and shopping centres. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) is due to introduce a voluntary Nabers scheme for office buildings in New Zealand later this year.
Paul Bannister, managing director of Exergy Australia, Australia’s largest energy management company, said the scheme needed to mature and gain market acceptance before becoming mandatory.
‘‘My advice to New Zealand is to start voluntary for at least four years before contemplating mandatory application.
‘‘The advantage, and indeed the purpose, of mandatory operation of Nabers Energy for Offices in Australia, is to work on the late-adopters – the smaller owners, smaller properties and lower quality properties.
‘‘Early adopters and the mainstream of the upper end of the property sector have been fully on board for a number of years.’’
Bannister, who will be speaking at the Energy Management Association of New Zealand conference in Christchurch on March 22-23, said the most identifiable benefit in Australia had been the sheer energy savings achieved, particularly at the upper end of the market – and New Zealand could expect similar results.
‘‘We work with one portfolio which has reduced its portfolio-wide energy consumption by in excess of 30 per cent, with some buildings reducing energy use and emissions by more than 50 per cent. As well as large cost saving benefits, there are environmental benefits appreciable on an industry and national scale.
‘‘New Zealand has a very similarly structured property market so we can expect many of the same benefits in improved performance and energy efficiency activity over time. It also has building metering that is broadly comparable to the Australian base building/ tenant split – albeit with a few complications – which should enable the same market mechanisms to be operated to support the rating.
‘‘I believe the basic approach will be very similar to Australia. The one item of concern is the management of tenant/landlord service boundaries which may be a little different. This doesn’t compromise the basic approach but will require some work.’’
Bannister trained in New Zealand and was inspired to develop the tools which became Nabers by a New Zealand data set compiled by EECA in the 1990s.
Originally it was purely an energy rating, launched in New South Wales in 1999 and nationally in 2000 as the Australian Building Greenhouse Rating Scheme (ABGR).
The scheme was originally championed by the NSW Sustainable Energy Development Authority.
However, activity really began when the NSW government, gradually followed by the other states and eventually the Federal Government, started requiring that new buildings leased by government tenants must have a minimum ABGR rating.
By 2008 most major property portfolios had announced policies to upgrade their buildings to a 4.5 star ABGR average. ABGR evolved into Nabers and now includes energy and water benchmarks for offices, business hotels and shopping centres, with an energy benchmark system for data centres to be released over the next year. There are also waste and indoor environment ratings for offices.
Bannister believes the key to Nabers’ success has been its ability to separate credible boundaries of responsibility between tenant and landlord for energy use. ‘‘We have a ‘‘base building’’ rating for office buildings, which represents items over which the building owner has nearly complete control, and a parallel ‘‘tenancy’’ rating which achieves much the same for the tenants.
‘‘The owner can rate their building without fear that it is going to be heavily dependent upon the tenancy profile, and the tenant can plausibly demand a base building rating for a building they do not currently occupy.
‘‘This places energy efficiency into the rental and valuation equations for the building, which carry financial imposts that are at least an order of magnitude higher than the energy costs themselves. By being a simple star rating, the technical performance has been converted into a consumer desirable, which is then called up as a general component of the building quality by non-technical people.’’
Bannister said that it was now common for ordinary existing buildings of 20-30 years old to be upgraded from 2.5 star Nabers standard to 4 stars without capital upgrades and to 4.5 and 5 stars with targeted upgrades.
‘‘This means that the industry average building is demonstrably capable of achieving 50 per cent energy reductions. Offices, and particularly office base buildings, have benefited most from the system. Activity in the tenancy sector, lacking the market drivers motivating building owners, has been harder to motivate although progress has been made.
‘‘From what I am seeing the shopping centres are going to be the next major front for activity, as these share many of the same ownership groups as the office buildings. Experience has indicated that the level of opportunity in that sector strongly reflects that found in the office sector.’’