What we do

Ratings

NABERS ratings are used by property owners, managers and tenants across Australia to understand, manage and promote their sustainability performance. They provide credible information about the environmental performance of office buildings and tenancies, shopping centres, hotels and data centres. Ratings are available for energy efficiency, water efficiency, waste management and indoor environment quality. Our ratings use a six-star rating scale, where one star reflects poor performance and six stars is market leading.

NABERS ratings are based on verified operational data such as utility bills and on-site measurements. Ratings reflect the environmental impact of the building in operation over a year, and are renewed annually. They provide the market with a common language to understand and evaluate performance and set energy/resource efficiency targets.

Commitment Agreements

We encourage excellence in building design and commissioning by offering developers and tenants the opportunity to sign a NABERS Energy Commitment Agreement. The agreement is applicable to new or refurbished commercial office buildings and tenancies.

Signatories to a NABERS Energy Commitment Agreement agree to design, build and commission the building or tenancy to meet a NABERS Energy star rating of 4 stars or higher once they have 12 months of operational data. The designs are required to be modelled for predicted performance, and the models reviewed by an Independent Design Reviewer appointed by NABERS. In exchange, the Commitment Agreement allows developers to promote the anticipated excellence in energy/greenhouse performance of the new or refurbished commercial office building using the
NABERS brand.

Training and accreditation

NABERS ratings can only be conducted by NABERS Accredited Assessors.

During the 2016/17 year, we accredited 74 new NABERS Assessors.

At June 30, 2017, we had a total of 595 NABERS Accredited Assessors (including 85 Assessors also accredited to deliver shopping centre ratings and 36 accredited to deliver data centre ratings).

We delivered six sessions of our face to face training: the Core Assessor Course and Energy & Water for offices module. There were 79 attendees across sessions in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

10 Assessors completed training to extend their accreditation to be able to perform shopping centre ratings.

Our development of online training content continued. We commenced development of e-learning modules for Energy and Water for hotels and Indoor Environment for offices. We updated and re-launched our NABERS Essentials course and 194 people signed up for it.

Auditing

To ensure the reliability and integrity of ratings, we routinely perform two levels of audit on ratings. A Level 1 Audit is conducted on 100% of ratings to ensure that the relevant data has been correctly entered, and the Rules for Collecting and Using Data have been applied.

We also conduct a Level 2 Audit on a randomly selected sample of ratings, with a minimum target of 5% of all ratings. A Level 2 Audit is a peer review, quality assurance process of reconstructing the building’s rating using the original data and documentation. It verifies whether a rating is correct and fully complies with the NABERS Rules, Rulings, processes and procedures. A Level 2 Audit also aims to identify NABERS Assessor’s level of performance when undertaking ratings.

In 2016/17 a Level 2 Audit was conducted on 5.2% of all ratings. Seven ratings were revised and seven NABERS Assessors received a sanction in accordance with the NABERS Rating Auditing Procedure.

In 2016/17, results from Level 2 Audits continued to identify areas for improvement to our Rules, processes and procedures and the NABERS Rate software application.

In September 2016, we also released Version 5 of the NABERS Rating Auditing Procedure. This document details the different stages of the L2 Audit process, and includes the following improvements:

• allowance for Assessors to be the subject of concurrent Level 2 Audits

• clarification regarding timeframes during the different stages of the audit process

• clarification of the different steps involved in the Right of Reply stage

• revision of potential sanctions to NABERS Assessors.

The NABERS Rating Auditing Procedure V.5 significantly improves our program’s quality-assurance and continuous improvement process.

Auditing for the Commercial Building Disclosure (CBD) program

NABERS supports the CBD program by providing information and advice regarding ratings and conducting audits on at least 5% of ratings undertaken for the purposes of complying with the Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Act 2010 (BEED Act). In 2016/17 a Level 2 Audit was conducted on 5.4% of all CBD ratings and six CBD ratings were revised.

Consultation

We work with industry to ensure that stakeholders are informed and consulted about program developments. We have an established Stakeholder Consultation Policy and regularly conduct industry consultation with our Stakeholder Advisory Committee, Auditors and Assessors and other targeted industry representatives. We also conduct public consultations.

Expert industry representatives also volunteer to participate in our Technical Working Groups to provide feedback and input into new tool development and tool reviews.

In 2016/17, NABERS led three consultation processes with industry and/or NABERS Assessors for the following:

• proposed changes to NABERS Governance

• proposed changes to the Supplementary Air Conditioning Ruling

• proposed changes to NABERS Indoor Environment Acoustic Comfort Benchmarks.

Tool development and enhancement

Our tools are routinely updated and new tools are periodically developed to meet industry needs. Existing rating tools are reviewed and enhanced to incorporate emerging technical and practical issues, to ensure that they are responsive to new developments in building use and operation.

New tools are developed for suitable building sectors in consideration of the potential environmental benefit, the market potential and the technical feasibility of a NABERS environmental performance tool for that sector.

Any proposals for new tools are closely assessed using the New Tool Assessment Framework to ensure that they are relevant, practical and supported by industry. Proposals for enhancements are assessed using the Tool Enhancement Assessment Framework.

Full details of our tool development activities during 2016/17 can be found in Achievements – Innovation.

NABERS Equipped

NABERS Equipped is a licensed product that enables organisations to incorporate our algorithms into their systems to provide customers with estimates of ratings based on real-time energy data.

In 2016/17, two new companies purchased a NABERS Equipped license, and two companies renewed their licenses.