Services: Consultancy and Sustainability
Benefits:
Background
In 2018, ESR Australia engaged Nutbrook Group to provide long-term consulting and sustainability services across its network of seven corporate assets across five sites (with seven addresses) in Sydney’s North Shore.
Focusing on energy and water, we developed a sustainability roadmap, highlighting opportunities to reduce each site’s environmental footprint in the short, medium and long-term.
Approach
Since 2018, we have been conducting annual assessments of each site, tracking utility usage and trends.
The data collated has informed our plan for addressing the National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS), Tenancy Lighting Assessment (TLA), and Building Energy Efficiency Certificate (BEEC) recommendations.
In addition to providing a unified approach to improving sustainability across all sites, the data has led to a series of immediate and significant enhancements being introduced at individual sites, including lighting and submetering to improve water usage.
Because of the non-invasive nature of the assessments, there has been no interruptions to building occupants or their business.
Rather, the initiative to reduce each site’s footprint and improve the network’s sustainability has had a positive impact on tenants and asset stakeholders, opening sites to a broader range of tentants.
Benefits:
In providing the NABERS Energy and Water roadmap, we have identified a number of quick wins as well as a longer term sustainability plan for each site’s future.
This includes a LED lighting upgrade for all assets to reduce energy consumption and submetering of each site’s water supply for more effective tracking of water usage and identifying issues.
Overall, each of the Collection sites is now more environmentally friendly, with a reduction in carbon output and energy usage contributing to a 1.5-star rating improvement.
The project has established the foundation for future works by highlighting discrepancies in electricity and water trends due to occupancy during COVID, aging base building systems or inefficient lighting/air-conditioning start-up times.
As an added benefit, our team was able to facilitate inspections from a broad range of tenants, including laboratories for food testing and infectious disease swab sampling, medical technology distributors, and occupational therapies.
