Life Cycle Cost Comparison of a High NABERS Performing Commercial Building

NABERS is a world leading program for rating the environmental performance of buildings. It takes real, measured impacts and communicates these in a clear and simple way. NABERS rates offices in energy, water, waste and indoor environment, shopping centres and hotels in energy and water, and energy in data centres.NSW Office of Environment & Heritage, the National Administrator of NABERS, commissioned AECOM to conduct a comparative analysis of the upfront capital and operational and maintenance (O&M) costs for a building targeting different NABERS Star Ratings [1]. The study modelled a new build on a brownfield site with a Net Lettable Area (NLA) of 35,000 m2 located in Sydney, NSW. This was conducted from both a building owner perspective (base building) and a tenant perspective (tenancy). The base building analysis started at 4.5 Star NABERS Energy and 4 Star NABERS Water, increasing in half star increments. The tenancy analysis started at 4.5 Star NABERS Energy, increasing in half star increments. This paper is based on the results from the AECOM study.The study supports the industry trend of high NABERS rated buildings having a greater financial return over the long term. The trend of higher capital investment for greater long term return will be one of the key risks in the development of a business case for a new commercial building.