There’s a reason Australia’s NABERS rating tool has been exported to the UK. Just as it has in Australia this energy rating tool is starting to transform the market.
According to Sarah Ratcliffe, chief executive of the Better Buildings Partnership, there’s a long way to go in the energy efficiency challenge in the UK, but there’s also great prospects for optimism.
In a conversation with Tina Perinotto for The Fifth Estate’s podcast, How to Build a Better World, Ratcliffe says some of the early wins are stronger collaboration within the industry and the start of a positive ecosystem to manage change.
In just 18 months since the tool landed in her country there’s been some strong early wins.
Through industry organisation Building Research Establishment (BRE), now has 59 licensed assessors, more than 200 enrolled in the training, and another 135 who have passed the course.
Ratcliffe says the UK is using the experiences of Australia as a model, to build an “ecosystem” that supports a transition to higher energy efficiency standards for the whole industry.
Its collaboration with other industry associations is therefore critical. As well as the BRE, her team has worked with Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) who’ve developed an advanced modelling course that ensures new buildings can be correctly metered for their energy consumption.
NABERS came to the UK 10 years after the Commercial Building Disclosure program turned the Australian market on its head – in a good way, with its mandate that offices of a certain size had to disclose their NABERS energy rating when they sold or leased.
The UK may well go down the same route Ratcliffe says.
The BBP, says Ratcliffe, is a collaboration of major property owners in the UK with 51 members holding around £280 billion (A$493) worth of assets under management, so when this group turns its attention to energy efficiency and sustainability you can be sure you’ll get cut through in the entire market.
Ratcliffe says although the UK was lagging Australia on energy efficiency and sustainability, she is optimistic about what the future will bring.
BBP has worked “really hard collaboratively across the industry to bring NABERS UK over,” Ratcliffe says.
“And the feedback that we have had from the industry so far has been incredibly positive.”
The rating tool is something the UK industry has been waiting for “for a very long time” and the industry is now mobilising to deliver the benefits. “Which is fantastic,” Ratcliffe says, before adding: “but we still have a very long way to go.”
Part of the challenge for the UK is a legacy of older buildings that typically have a single meter, so posing significant barriers to encouraging strong energy savings from a variety of tenants that might inhabit the place.
In the UK, Energy Performance Certificates tells owners and tenants what a particular building is capable of achieving in energy efficiency, but NABERS will reveal the real life performance data. In other words it measures “actual use” of energy, as Ratcliffe says.
There are now 59 licensed assessors in the UK for NABERS, over 200 enrolled in the training and a further 135 who have qualified.
“The feedback that we have had from the industry so far has been incredibly positive,” Ratcliffe said. “We have been waiting for this for a very long time. And the industry is now mobilising to deliver that which is fantastic, but we still have a very long way to go.”
Embodied carbon
In conversation with Ratcliffe, TFE managing editor Tina Perinotto commented that in Australia, “property owners say we’ve really nailed energy efficiency… Nobody really paid much attention to embodied carbon.
“And now that energy efficiency is better because of NABERS… suddenly embodied carbon looks like the big, big bad source of emissions.”
Embodied carbon is responsible for about 20 per cent of emissions from the built environment according to the UK Green Building Council – and that figure is set to rise to 50 per cent in 2035.
Attention is now turning to how to minimise embodied carbon for new buildings in the UK, just as it is in Australia.
Alongside a range of other challenges that are storming the built environment globally.
For instance nature based solutions as well as social impact – concerns coming to the fore in the industry, Ratcliffe says.
“The key thing that came out of COP27 was this whole issue of loss and damage. What that does is bring social impact much more clearly into the fore, and the need to ensure that the transition is a just transition.”
Collaboration
Solving those problems is a challenge the built environment sector tackling by growing levels of collaboration. Ratcliffe mentions BRE, the Carbon Trust, CIBSE, BRE, the Institute of Structural Engineers, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors , UK Green Building Council and the London Energy Transformation Initiative.
But it’s also cross-sectoral with ESG [environmental, social and governance) professionals for instance moving across industries – an exciting development that will be to the benefit of the whole, especially with skills transfers, Ratcliffe says.
The role of the finance sector is particularly important, she says because it can drive stronger performance across the sectors.
“All of those organisations are coming together to develop a net zero carbon building standard. For me, that’s a really excellent example of cross sector collaboration.
“There is a huge amount of voluntary effort across the industry going behind into developing the net zero standard.
“I think the UK is making some really good strides here to make sure that we do collaborate, because time is short and duplication is not helpful.”