Green Building Ratings: Green Star and NABERS

About this course.

Voluntary ratings exist because the National Construction Code (NCC) sets a mandatory minimum that every building must meet, while the market, tenants, investors and owners increasingly want a way to recognise and reward performance that goes beyond that minimum. The NCC, maintained by the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB), establishes the baseline for safety, health, amenity, accessibility and energy efficiency — the floor below which a building must not fall. Voluntary schemes such as Green Star and NABERS sit above that floor, giving a credible, independent, comparable way to demonstrate that a building is more sustainable, more efficient or better performing than the law strictly requires. They translate "better than minimum" into something a market can see, compare and value.

To understand the role of ratings, it helps to be clear about what the NCC does and does not do. The NCC, given legal effect by each state and territory, sets performance requirements that buildings must satisfy, including energy-efficiency provisions. It is a regulatory instrument concerned with acceptable minimum outcomes across the whole building stock. Because it must apply to every project, it is calibrated to what is reasonable and achievable as a baseline, not to what is exemplary. Meeting the NCC means a building is lawful; it does not, by itself, mean the building is a leader in sustainability, nor does it produce a recognisable, comparable label that a tenant or investor can rely on to distinguish one compliant building from another.