NABERS, the National Australian Built Environment Rating System, has expanded its waste platform to include additional waste streams and more building types.
From July 1, additional waste streams include catering donated to charities, coffee cups, medical waste, pallets, textiles and mattresses. Buildings that recycle more will be able to use the platform to demonstrate better performance and obtain a higher waste rating.
Food and industrial manufacturing facilities, aged care facilities, universities and TAFEs, pubs, small hotels, warehouses and distribution centres, beverage production facilities, conference venues, correctional facilities, entertainment precincts, hospitals, schools, stadiums, transport stations, theatres, zoos and aquariums will now be able to track their waste management and resource recovery using the NABERS online platform.
While these new building types won’t yet receive NABERS waste ratings, they can use the tool to track waste and recycling data and benchmark their performance year-on-year.
The expansion follows the launch of NABER’s new benchmarks for small shopping centres. The NABERS for Shopping Centres rating has had strong uptake – with almost 150 centres rated last financial year.
To date, most of the centres rated were larger than 15,000m2 – as the NABERS benchmarks were not considered representative for smaller centres.
NABERS was asked by industry to expand the benchmarks to these smaller centres so that they could get full coverage of their portfolios.
Property Council of Australia research also indicated that 75 per cent of all shopping centres across Australia are smaller than 15,000m2. The expansion now covers the 75 per cent shopping centres not previously covered by the tool.
NABERS, a national government program that values, rates and leads Australia’s built environment sustainability efforts, released its five-year plan earlier this year in April, with plans to double number of ratings over the next five years.
Comment below to have your say on this story.
If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at info@3.106.117.80.
Sign up to INCLEAN’s newsletter.
