The New NABERS Indoor Environment tool – the Next Frontier for Australian Buildings

In our ambition to improve the environmental performance of office buildings, it is easy to lose sight of their real purpose – to accommodate people. To understand the future of sustainable buildings, it is important to recognise that services such as HVAC and lighting are provided to create suitably comfortable conditions for staff to be productive. Providing a good quality indoor environment has been shown to increase staff productivity from improved comfort, health and wellbeing. Productive staff are essential for creating competitive businesses. The Property Council of Australia has estimated for offices that a 1% improvement in productivity would be equivalent to the whole energy cost of a building or, nationally $2 billion annually. The indoor environment quality (IEQ) of an office is complex and determined by many factors, including the layout of the space, lighting, air quality, thermal conditions and noise levels. These are influenced by the building characteristics, maintenance practices, tenant equipment and behaviour. The new NABERS Indoor Environment (IE) tool measures these IEQ factors and compares their performance against a set of benchmarks that reflect industry standards, scientific research and current market performance of office buildings. NABERS IE converts this complex information into a score on a six star scale – providing a direct measure of the overall IEQ for the office. This star rating provides a common language which can assist in coordinating multiple parties in setting goals, evaluating performance and recognising market achievements in occupant comfort and wellbeing. A high NABERS IE rating will help attract and retain tenants with excellence in indoor air quality and thermal comfort identified by tenants as significantly more important than other building attributes [14] . While for businesses, a high NABERS IE tenancy rating will identify you as an employer of choice – helping you to attract and retain staff.