NABERS is excited to announce the release of the Embodied Carbon rating tool, a major milestone towards driving sustainable building practices. It enables new buildings and partial rebuilds to measure and compare their upfront embodied carbon with similar buildings.
The tool was launched by the Hon Josh Wilson, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy at the EEC’s Building Energy Performance Summit in Melbourne.
“I am rapt that we’ve reached this heartening and welcome milestone with today’s release of the NABERS Embodied Carbon Tool,” said Assistant Minister Wilson.
"This is a great example of how government and industry can work together to decarbonise the built environment, increase sustainability and circularity in our work of finite resources, and make real progress towards a net zero future."
Buildings will be able to get a NABERS Embodied Carbon certificate once they reach practical completion, and up to two years after. The tool will provide a certified measure of carbon intensity, incorporating material, transport and construction emissions.
The NABERS Embodied Carbon rating tool will:
- Include all major sources of emissions including the superstructure (above ground), substructure (below ground), envelope and building services.
- Exclude emissions from demolition of previous structures and promote material reuse by assigning zero emissions to elements that are reused in their original state.
- Exclude emissions from fit outs such as fixtures and fittings, and internal doors due to limited data and the fact that these sources are a small proportion of the upfront emissions. NABERS will look into expanding the tool to measure embodied carbon in fit outs.
“The NABERS Embodied Carbon rating tool is a testament to what we can achieve when government, industry, and experts work together. With this tool we can accurately measure embodied carbon emissions with confidence, supporting Australia’s journey to net zero.” – James Elks, Acting Director, NABERS
Where enough benchmarking data is available the rating will include a star rating result. The list of buildings eligible for a star rating will be provided after benchmarking is complete.
In Australia, embodied carbon from construction activity accounts for 10% of our emissions, most of it generated upfront – in other words, before or during construction. But we also know, from projections made by Infrastructure Australia, that we can achieve up to a 23% reduction in upfront embodied carbon emissions by 2027 through the application of simple decarbonisation strategies. Reducing embodied carbon will help us Australia’s net zero and 2030 targets.
Ready to find out more? Review the NABERS Embodied Carbon Rules.
NABERS will conduct Assessor training sessions in 2025. Find out if this accreditation is suitable and register your interest for the NABERS Embodied Carbon rating tool training course.