Understanding The National Australian Built Environment Rating System

Last updated on March 10, 2025

NABERS is an environmental rating scheme that evaluates the sustainability performance of buildings and tenancies across various industries in Australia. Established in 1998, it was designed to address the environmental challenges posed by buildings and has since driven sustainable development across the country.

How NABERS Operates

NABERS rates a building’s sustainability based on its energy efficiency, water usage, waste management, and indoor environment quality.

Ratings are determined using actual performance data collected over 12 months and compared to a benchmark for the building type. After the analysis, a star rating is awarded based on the building’s performance.

NABERS Rating Types

Energy Efficiency
Water Conservation
Waste Management
Indoor Environment Quality

Energy Efficiency Rating

NABERS Energy measures a building’s energy efficiency and its greenhouse gas pollution.

This metric enables the evaluation of energy use patterns, comparison with similar buildings, and identification of ways to decrease energy consumption and carbon emissions, thus achieving cost savings and positive environmental impacts.

To receive a NABERS Energy rating, Accredited Assessors gather information regarding a building’s energy consumption, including gas and electricity bills. They also evaluate various other building characteristics, like its size, hours of occupancy, climatic location, and occupancy density.

The gathered data is fed into the NABERS rating calculator, which statistically computes a rating. It can be anywhere from 0 to 6, with zero being poor and six being excellent.

Conservation Rating

A NABERS Water rating measures how much water a building uses and recycles.

This system enables property owners to easily evaluate a building’s water use efficiency relative to other similar properties within the same geographical area.

The NABERS Water rating relies on the real water use associated with a building for a year. The rating is standardized for climate, occupancy hours, and headcount to ensure fairness when comparing different buildings.

Waste Management Rating

NABERS Waste is a rating system developed to assess the effectiveness of waste management procedures in commercial buildings. It measures how a specific property executes waste management, from separation to recycling and disposal.

The rating assists building managers and owners to identify areas that require improvement, monitor progress, and promote environmental sustainability.

Indoor Environment Quality

Nabers I.E. checks the quality of the indoor environment of the building like the thermal comfort, acoustic comfort, quality of indoor air, quality of lighting, and office furniture arrangements.

It aims to make sure that buildings are configured in a manner that is not just safe but optimally comfortable and productive for the occupants.

NABERS Rating Scale

NABERS ratings are based on a star system with 1 being the lowest point and six being the highest. A 1-star rating indicates that the building is in terrible condition and needs a lot of work, while a 6-star rating means that a building performs incredibly well compared to others within the industry.

The beauty of the NABERS scale is that it encourages continuous improvement even after achieving higher performance so that operational perfection, along with even more environmental benefits can be achieved.

Here is what each score means:

0 – ‘poor’
1 – ‘Making a start’
2 – ‘Below average’
3 – ‘Market Average’’
4 – ‘Good’
5 – ‘Excellent’
6 – ‘Market leading’

You can use a NABERS star rating to:

Recognize your potential savings and energy efficiency.
Monitor developments and show how changes are having an impact.
Express your performance and dedication to effectiveness.

Spaces That NABERS RATE

Schools
Centers for Shopping
Shops
Apartment Complexes
Public hospitals
Accommodations
Data Centers
Retail Stores
Retirement Facilities
Warehouses and Cold Stores, etc.

Steps to a NABERS Rating

Accredited Assessors: Search for professionals allowed by NABERS to undertake ratings.
Collect Data: NABERS evaluate based on data collected for 1 year. Ensure you have all such data.
Preliminary Analysis: You can upload your data to NABERS online tools and get preliminary results.
Site Visits: The approved assessors come to verify your information. They will assess key features impacting sustainability.
Data verification: Your data is verifiable and moderated for fair comparison. Factors like climate, occupancy, and building size are adjusted.
Rating Determination: The property performance is evaluated against a national benchmark. This gives you a rating.
Certification and Report: You get a certificate bearing results and suggestions. Use it to improve even further.

Comparing NABERS TO Alternative Building Grading Systems

NABERS system stands because it is performance-based rather than design-based. Its assessments are conducted by third-party “Accredited Assessors,” and ratings are subject to government quality assurance checks. Although some of its competing grading systems worldwide share some of these characteristics, not all do.

Benefits of NABERS

Building with high NABERS yields substantial financial benefits because they increase value and save operational costs.

NABERS Helps With Saving

Acquiring a NABERS rating certificate enables the discovery of savings over a while. Office buildings using NABERS can measure their performance over time. They have reported an average of 8.5% improvement in energy efficiency and 11% in water efficiency, resulting in savings of 383,300 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and 1.6 billion liters of water annually.

Increased building values with NABERS

NABERS Sustainable buildings require less investment to be operationally efficient and have a higher demand from tenants and investors. Also, they have a low vacancy rate and better resource management. All these work together to drive the property value higher.

Boosting sustainability performance

NABERS allows you to meet the demand for cleaner buildings and workspaces by persuading landlords and occupants to avoid, decrease, and even remove harmful substances from their homes, buildings, and offices.

A high level of market recognition

NABERS is a trusted building evaluator that most people believe in when making property investment decisions. If you have properties that are highly rated on the NABERS rating scale, selling them will be pretty easy as most people are looking for such premises –they command the market!

Conclusion

NABERS is a standardized building rating system that evaluates the sustainability performance of commercial buildings across Australia. The goal of NABERS is to help building owners, tenants, and managers reduce their environmental impact, lower operational costs, and enhance sustainability.

It evaluates buildings and assigns a star rating out of six to buildings like offices, hospitals, shopping malls, and hotels. A 1-star rating is the lowest on the NABERS scale, and a six-star rating is the highest.

These ratings have significant advantages as they help businesses enhance efficiency, attract tenants, and boost property value.

So, whether you are a tenant, own property, or a business owner, always aim for higher NABERS ratings!