New Energy Use Rating Scheme a Game Changer for Commercial Property
On 10 June 2013, Simon Bridges, the Energy and Resources Minister, launched a new rating tool to assess the energy use of commercial office buildings.
The new tool is called NABERSNZ, which is based on the Australian “National Australian Built Environment Rating System”.
NABERSNZ will rate the energy use of an office building on a one to six star scale (with one being poor and six being aspirational). This will provide an independent measure of a building’s energy performance which will be comparable between buildings. The intention is the rating system will allow building owners to demonstrate that their buildings have good energy performance. This may make their buildings more attractive to tenants and increase awareness of green building issues.
NABERSNZ will also allow building owners and tenants to have a quantifiable measure of energy performance improvements resulting from changes to building operations and services.
NABERSNZ is administered by the New Zealand Green Building Council (“NZGBC”). The NZGBC also administers the Green Star rating system which rates a number of environmental attributes for commercial buildings during design and construction. The NABERSNZ tool will sit alongside the existing Green Star rating system.
Click on the link for the NABERSNZ press release.
Prepared by Robert Huse.
PDF version: New Energy Use Ratings Scheme for Commercial Property