NABERS program team leader for development and innovation, Carlos Flores, explains why there is no industry with such clear links between people, profit and the planet as the commercial property sector.
If you are into buzzwords, this is called the triple bottom line - or just "TBL" if you are trying to impress - and it applies particularly well to office buildings. When we say we want better buildings, we mean buildings that are good for business, good for people and good for the environment.
Our journey started over a decade ago with the original release of NABERS Energy for offices. This was our response to an industry that was ready to take action on sustainability, but it was missing one key ingredient: the opportunity to gain recognition (and therefore a business benefit) for their sustainability efforts.
This was the beginning of a remarkable decade that brought building sustainability into part of the core business of many companies throughout Australia.
Last year, nearly 17 million square metre of office space was rated. More importantly, high achievers are on the rise, with five and 5.5 star buildings increasing from only six per cent of rated buildings in 2010 to 19 per cent in 2013. Over 50 buildings have reached a NABERS Energy rating of 5.5 stars and many are now setting their eyes on the six star mark.
At the same time, the proportion of buildings with ratings lower than four stars halved from 61 per cent in 2010 to just 31 per cent in 2013.
HVAC services, representing the lion’s share of base building energy use, are at the core of this sustainable revolution. HVAC specialists have not only increased in numbers and expertise, but also in terms of sophistication and creativeness of solutions.
Progress in sustainability also comes hand-in-hand with tangible business benefits, as shown by the Investment Property Databank Ltd (IPD) market results released in August. Buildings with high NABERS Energy ratings outperform the rest in many financial aspects: higher returns and capital value, longer leases, lower capex and vacancy rates, you name it.
It’s no longer just an idea that companies could make more money by going green. In the Australian property sector, they actually are.
However, in our eagerness to make buildings more and more efficient it is easy to start thinking about buildings as machines, forgetting that their purpose is to accommodate people.
We know energy use by equipment represents 15 to 25 per cent of all the energy used in a typical office building. To reflect for a moment on this simple statistic – this means that all the equipment we use to do actual work (computers, phones, printers) accounts for less than a quarter of the energy used in our building.
So, if not for work, what are we using our energy for? The answer is primarily indoor environment quality (IEQ). We use most of our energy to generate good conditions for people to do work. About two thirds of all energy used in office buildings is spent on services that are directly related to providing adequate IEQ, specifically HVAC services and lighting.
So when we talk about ambitious energy or water efficiency targets, we are not just talking about better machines. We are talking about providing better services to people while using less energy and water. And this really highlights the central role that people play in a more sustainable future.
NABERS had its first foray into bringing people into the picture five years ago with the release of the NABERS Indoor Environment (IE) rating tool. The first iteration of NABERS IE was a world first, and proved to be technically sound while demonstrating there is a market demand for IEQ ratings by a healthy number of industry leaders.
For the past year, we have been working closely with industry to develop a series of concrete and exciting enhancements to NABERS IE, which are now out for industry consultation. Because of its major effects on IEQ issues such as thermal comfort, air quality and acoustics, the HVAC industry is once again called to be at the forefront of the IEQ revolution.
Much like the way NABERS Energy transformed building energy efficiency, we believe NABERS IE Mark 2 will be a game-changer for IEQ, allowing those who achieve better conditions for people to stand out from the pack and lead the next wave of sustainability in the built environment, with people at the centre.
About the author
Carlos Flores is the team leader for development and innovation at the NABERS program, and a mechanical engineer by trade. He manages major revisions to existing NABERS tools and is currently reviewing NABERS Indoor Environment.