(swoosh sound)
NABERS really addressed the
issue of information, I mean people talk about energy efficiency in the context of
other, i suppose, market initiatives and it was about providing information into the
marketplace
in a digestible format, as engineers we tend to think that is very interesting
to have
kilowatt hours per metre squared figures and those sorts of numbers
but basically they don't mean anything to
to the people make real decisions so NABERS brought the,
the realm of of engineering
into a consumable for people who actually have money
which is not the engineers, that's that the financial people, the accountants
and by addressing that barrier
it then turned into a consumable that people then said, "I'll have...
you know, I'll have a nice view ooh and I'll have a five star rating as well
and prescribed about that much technical understanding as well
are well NABERS goes back a
long way but, so it's hard to remember what it was like before NABERS but
look, I don't think it was taken
very seriously in those days, I've been in energy management for twenty-odd years
and I think it would be
fair to say that in the early years people didn't hire us for our energy
management skills because energy wasn't seen as a
as an issue, and NABERS came along and I think it changed
all of that, or at least it allowed people
to see that there was a difference, and that that differences
were important
NABERS is unique in the world in that
when it was first put together
there was a realisation that, you know, emissions
in developed countries came from existing building stock
and there was really no rating system that dealt with that
we've got for example
Green Star or LEED, where you're looking at new building performance
generally, but there wasn't really anything where you have to
re-focus
the sustainable performance of buildings every year to make sure that they were
always
on track, and I think NABERS recognised, or the people who developed
NABERS recognised that, and that's why it's such a strong brand
if you look at say what the Americans do, they've got Energy Star
but the reporting is voluntary, now NABERS you need third party Accredited
third-party Accredited Assessor to come out and do the rating
for you so there's a, there's a trust that, you know, the scheme is being looked after
carefully there's quality control
you can't really cheat. You know, if you've got a NABERS four and a half star
or a NABERS four-star or NABERS five star, you know what it's going to be
performing like
and then of course there is assessments
and training of assessors and
audits of assessments, so all those things
together I think have really made NABERS a really strong brand in the marketplace
Australia has a reputation of leading the market in this field and that is
basically all down to NABERS
other countries have
green star like schemes and green star has done very well and done some very good things
for market here but NABERS
as an operational tool with genuine
measured emissions reductions is
almost unique internationally and is certainly unique international in terms
of the scale with impact it's had
so Australian portfolios keep on taking out international prizes for
sustainability and that is driven very strongly
by their NABERS outcomes
