A part of the Green Building Funds $30M Grant program is available for Hotels but what will you be required to do to access the funds?

Formal guidelines have not been established but in line with the previous Green Building Fund you will be required to demonstrate greenhouse gas savings. A NABERS Energy assessment is a sure way to demonstrate existing property performance so you can then measure the improvements being targeted through upgrades.

If you are considering upgrading and applying for a Green Building Fund Grant for your Hotel then we can assist you in this process. Napier & Blakeley have been successful in obtaining over $5M in funding for our clients in the previous Green Building Fund rounds.

The Hotel NABERS Energy rating is not applicable for all hotels and you should consider the following when reviewing the requirements to obtain a rating.

 

Requirements For Completing An Assessment

NABERS Energy and Water for hotels is designed for business hotels within Australia. Business hotels have the following characteristics:

• At least 50% of rooms have little or no in-room cooking facility
• At least 50% of rooms are sold on the basis of a single guest per night, typically with short stays
• Heated pool facilities typically limited to less than 200m² surface area
• No dedicated on-site overnight accommodation for staff
• Often located within urban areas

These characteristics are not exclusive and it is not intended for Accredited Assessors to specifically assess these except if required in the interpretation of a rating. While it may be possible to rate other hotels types such as a resort hotel using NABERS for hotels, the resultant rating will not be a reliable indicator of the hotel performance.

NABERS for hotels is a comparative tool which measures and benchmarks hotels water and energy consumption against the market average. The rating includes energy and water used by all facilities provided for the utility of hotel guests and the associated back-of-house requirements and specifically includes:

• Hotel rooms
• Conference facilities
• Laundry services within the hotel either for back-of-house or guest use
• Food services within the hotel floor-plate that have charge-to-room facility
• Gyms and pools for guest use
• Other guest services, such as a beauty treatment or business centre within the hotel floor plate that have charge-to-room facility
• Hotel back-of-house areas including hotel-only offices, meeting rooms and staff facilities
• Hotel lobby
• All vertical transportation used in the access to the hotel lobby, facilities and rooms

NABERS for hotels exclude areas, services, functions and energy consumption that are associated with “non-hotel” activities. Therefore NABERS for hotels does not include areas, and the associated energy or water use associated with:

• Retail outlets that are separately leased and managed
• Café’s, restaurants and other food services that do not have charge-to-room facility
• General leased office space not used directly by hotel operations
• Car parks available to the public which are not provided for the specific use of the hotel
• Major equipment primarily serving non-hotel occupants or non-hotel uses (e.g. telephone exchanges, computer systems servicing external networks and specialist communications equipment).
  These are dealt with by exclusion of energy or water use by applying the various protocols during the assessment.

NSW / ACT / WA / NZ  -  Alastair Walker, Rod Clarke -  02 9299 1899
VIC /  SA  / TAS  -  Peter Frith, Rob Howells -  03 9915 6300