NSW joins SA in Mandating 5 Star NABERS Minimum Requirement
The NSW Government launched an updated version of its Government Resource Efficiency Policy (GREP) which mandates 5 Star NABERS Energy ratings for owned or leased office buildings occupied by NSW Government, raising the requirement from 4.5 Stars. It also mandates 4.5 Star ratings for Data Centres.
The policy has immediate effect with a target to achieve full compliance by June 2020.
The GREP targets broad range of areas to drive resource efficiency in NSW Government agencies in the four main areas of energy, water, waste and air emission including:
- Reporting resource consumption and waste
- Targeted energy savings
- Mandating minimum NABERS ratings for energy and water
- Minimum standards for electrical and water using appliances and equipment
- Minimum standards for new buildings and fitouts
- Solar targets
- Minimum fuel efficiency vehicle standards
- Purchase of GreenPower
- Emissions standards for fixed plant and equipment
- Low VOC materials Continue reading
Buyers Beware… Investigate or Reach for your Wallet
In the last year Napier & Blakeley have undertaken more than 100 physical due diligence and capital expenditure forecast exercises with a combined value in excess of $10billion.
It’s rare to find nothing that would be considered problematic for an incoming owner, but the last few years there have been a few issues that have become commonplace through either lack of ongoing investment and maintenance or as a result of new market legislation.
The GFC brought substantial financial constraints to the entire economy but for property owners it brought pressures through loan to value ratios (LVR’s), reductions in value and rental income. This created a catch 22 situation where many knew they had to keep maintaining and spending capital to keep their assets compliant, relevant and therefore rentable, but were unable to directly fund or borrow funds to do so.
We recently re-analysed an asset that we had prepared due diligence and capex forecasts for a few years ago, and the list of items that we identified in our initial report were almost completely the same as now. Nothing had been fixed, maintained or repositioned. So, many years down the track the asset has fallen deeper into redundancy and therefore costs more to rectify. Continue reading
