NABERS Sustainable Portfolios Index 2020

The National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) Sustainable Portfolios Index (SPI) 2020 is now available online. The SPI explores the top 40 property portfolios in Australia achieving measurable sustainability actions.

A portfolio consists of two or more buildings with NABERS ratings owned by the same company.

The SPI also provides comparative business intelligence on where property portfolios stand against their peers, and provides a complement to popular environmental, social and governance indicators for investors.

NABERS director Carlos Flores says this year saw a 48 per cent increase in participation, with a record 40 portfolios disclosing their energy and water performance.

“We also launched new categories, to recognise 11 pioneer portfolios who are leading the way on indoor environment quality and waste,” he says.

The top portfolio ratings for each category include:

• Office Energy – Cbus Property
• Office Water – Lendlease Barangaroo International Towers
• Office Indoor – Brookfield Premier Real Estate Partners Australia
• Office Waste – Frasers Property
• Shopping Centre Energy – Local Government Property Fund
• Shopping Centre Water – Local Government Property Fund.

NABERS ratings are used to measure a building’s energy efficiency, carbon emissions, water consumed, waste produced and indoor environment quality and compare it to similar buildings. They differ with other schemes because they measure actual environmental impact, not design intent or management strategies.

Managing director of Real Investment Analytics (RIA), Anthony De Francesco, says there appears to be a strong positive relationship between a high NABERS rating and enhanced investment performance for office property assets.

This is generally reflected in improved property values, lower vacancies, firmer capitalisation rates, and longer weighted average lease expiry (WALE).

“NABERS ratings provide an additional metric in evaluating performance of existing property investments, but can also be used to identify opportunities for portfolio growth by targeting office buildings with a lower NABERS rating,” he says.

The Sustainable Portfolios Index is available to read here.