Public Hospitals

How it works

Measure, compare and communicate your public hospital's sustainability with NABERS.

A NABERS rating helps public hospital leaders, administrators and facilities managers to quantify your environmental performance. It helps you track progress, target cost-saving areas and compare their efficiency against similar hospitals nationally.

After your public hospital is assessed, you'll receive a rating from 1 to 6 stars, with 3 stars being average and 6 being market leading.

Improve operational efficiency

A NABERS rating is the first step towards strong gains in building performance. Use your rating to identify improvement opportunities and help prioritise upgrades to infrastructure.

A certification you can trust

NABERS is a trusted, government-backed sustainability initiative, providing independent and credible sustainability assessments since 1999. Our ratings formulated are based on your hospital's actual performance, compared to our industry benchmark.

Improve sustainability reporting

A NABERS rating is a simple way to demonstrate your facility's environmental performance. Use your rating to communicate your sustainability achievements to key stakeholders.

Strengthen your hospital's reputation

A NABERS rating is a simple but powerful way to demonstrate your commitment to sustainability to the local community. It's a reliable way to show sustainability leadership, without relying on unverified claims or anecdotes.

Ratings and tools for public hospitals

For existing public hospitals

Energy rating

A NABERS Energy rating is a measure of the energy efficiency of your hospital, giving you a fair reflection of how you are progressing against your energy-saving commitments. It includes the Renewable Energy Indicator, which shows what percentage of a public hospital's energy has come from renewable sources.

Water rating

A NABERS Water rating measures the amount of water used and recycled in your public hospital. It provides a clear picture of your school's water performance, helping you understand how efficiently water is being used and identify opportunities to reduce consumption, save costs, and support your sustainability goals.

Waste rating and platform

NABERS Waste tools measure how well your hospital manages waste generation, recycling, resource recovery and supply chain management. NABERS can provide an independent measurement of the recycling and resource recovery performance of a public hospital.

For new or planned public hospitals

Embodied Carbon rating

Measure the upfront embodied carbon of a new public hospital build or partial rebuild with an Embodied Carbon rating. This tool is a certified measure of material, transport and construction-related emissions.

Testimonials

Victorian Health Building Authority

“Public hospitals are already transparent about a range of performance metrics, from patient treatment time to ambulance response time. We think there are benefits of being transparent about the environmental performance of our hospitals too.”

Tiernan Humphrys

Senior Technical Specialist - Environmental Sustainability, Victorian Health Building Authority

Resources for public hospitals

Downloads

Fact Sheet - Public Hospitals

Learn more about NABERS for public hospitals.

PDF • 341.32KB

NABERS Energy and Water for Hospital Rules v2.0

Explore the detailed method and criteria Assessors must follow when certifying the energy and water efficiency of a public hospital.

PDF • 1.85MB

NABERS Energy and Water - Hospitals Support Document

Read in conjunction with the NABERS Energy and Water Rules for Hospitals, this document provided Assessors with additional information to ensure ratings are conducted in a consistent and robust manner.

PDF • 379.41KB

Get started with NABERS

Get in touch with our team to learn more about how NABERS can support your sustainability journey.

Frequently Asked Questions

For any other questions about NABERS for public hospitals, please contact us.

Ratings are available only to public hospitals based in Australia.

At this stage, private hospitals are not eligible for any NABERS ratings or tools.

For more information on eligibility, download the rules document for your desired rating type from the Publications page.

Unlike other building types, NABERS for public hospitals operates through a direct relationship with state health departments in partnership with the Australasian Health Infrastructure Alliance, rather than third-party NABERS Assessors. Ratings are conducted by trained Assessors within health departments, which are then certified and audited by NABERS.

To learn more about how to get your hospital certified, please contact us.

The trained Assessor within your health department will guide you through the process of collecting the required data for a rating.

If you're a public hospital representative looking to get your facility certified, please contact your relevant state health department. You can also contact us for more information.

To learn more about pricing for public hospitals, visit Pricing and Offers.

Validity periods vary by rating type. Refer to the page of your desired rating page to determine its validity period.

For a more detailed explanation of the how a NABERS rating is calculated, download the rules document for your desired rating type from the Publications page.

The latest news on public hospitals

30 Jul 2026