Apartment Buildings

How it works

Measure, compare and communicate the performance of your apartment building with a NABERS rating.

Similar to the star ratings you see on your fridge or washing machine, a NABERS rating allows you to assess the energy and water performance of your apartment building’s common property and compare the results against others in a fair and transparent way.

NABERS helps owners corporations, strata managers and building managers understand how their apartment building is performing compared with similar buildings across Australia. By assessing your building and rating it out of 6 stars, you’ll know where your building stands and you can plan for improvements, helping you identify opportunities to reduce your energy and water bills.

A certification you can trust

NABERS provides an independent, government-administered benchmark of apartment building performance. By verifying data and applying a consistent methodology, NABERS helps you understand how your building compares with similar buildings.

Help identify and prioritise building upgrades

A NABERS rating is the first step towards major improvements in building performance. With help from your Assessor, your rating helps you find areas for operational improvements and cost savings, enabling owners corporations to make informed decisions on capital upgrades.

Share your building's performance with ease

A NABERS rating translates complex building performance data into a simple and trusted benchmark. It helps strata committees, owners and residents understand how the building is performing and track progress over time.

Ratings and tools for apartment buildings

For existing apartment buildings

Energy rating

A NABERS Energy rating measures the energy performance of your apartment building’s common property areas. This includes energy used by lifts, common area lighting, car park lighting, mechanical ventilation, pools, gyms and other central systems. By benchmarking your building against similar apartment buildings, a NABERS Energy rating helps you understand how efficiently these services are operating and identify opportunities to improve performance. Every NABERS Energy Rating includes the Renewable Energy Indicator, which shows what percentage of your common property’s energy has come from renewable sources.

Looking for an energy rating for your individual apartment?

A NABERS Energy rating measures the environmental performance of the common property areas of your apartment building, not of individual apartments.

To get an energy rating for an individual apartment, please visit the Australian Government’s Home Energy Rating Scheme.

Water rating

A NABERS Water rating measures how efficiently water is used within your apartment building. Depending on your building’s metering arrangement, your rating can include shared water use only or all water use across the building.

A NABERS Water rating can help identify opportunities to improve water efficiency and reduce water costs.

Waste Verification and Platform

NABERS Waste tools help apartment buildings track and verify waste generation, as well as recycling and resource recovery performance. A NABERS Waste Verification provides an independent assessment of your building's waste outcomes, while the NABERS Waste Platform helps you monitor performance over time and identify opportunities for improvement.

For new or planned apartment buildings

Embodied Carbon rating

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

Commitment Agreement

A NABERS Commitment Agreement allows project teams to commit to designing and building an apartment building to achieve a targeted NABERS Energy rating.

It provides independent verification of your design intent, helping demonstrate sustainability commitments to customers, investors and planning authorities before development.

A Commitment Agreement is suitable for new developments seeking to achieve a specific NABERS Energy rating.

Agreement to Rate

If you’re building or refurbishing an apartment building, an Agreement to Rate allows you to commit to obtain a NABERS rating once the work has been completed. This can provide all stakeholders with confidence that the building’s operational performance will be independently measured and disclosed after completion.

An Agreement to Rate is suitable for new developments or refurbishments that want to commit to future performance measurement.

Case studies

Smart, sustainable apartments in the spotlight

Apartment owners can slash their energy and water costs by around 30% by peeling back the layers of their building’s performance with a NABERS rating. Find out how apartment owners are cutting costs and carbon, and attracting buyers in a crowded market.

Read full case study

Resources for apartment buildings

Downloads

Fact Sheet for Apartment Buildings

Learn more about NABERS for apartment buildings.

PDF • 436.38KB

Links

NABERS Energy and Water for Apartment Buildings Rules

Explore the detailed method and criteria Assessors must follow when certifying the energy and water efficiency of an apartment building.

Get started with NABERS

Take the first step towards measuring your apartment building's environmental performance. Select an Accredited Assessor to help you get certified.

Find an Assessor

Not ready to get rated?

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 apartment buildings, please contact us.

Apartment buildings with at least four apartments across at least two floors are eligible for a NABERS rating. Additional requirements may apply depending on the rating type and the availability of building data.

For specific details on eligibility requirements, refer to the Rules document of your desired rating type on the Publications page.

A NABERS Energy rating for Apartment Buildings measures the performance of your apartment building’s common property areas and shared services. This includes lifts, common area lighting, hallways, car parks, pools, gyms, ventilation systems and other central building services.

NABERS Energy ratings for Apartment Buildings do not assess the energy or water consumption of individual units.

For ratings of individual units, visit the Australian Government’s Home Energy Rating Scheme.

Utility bills tell you how much energy or water your building uses. A NABERS rating helps you understand whether your building’s performance is good, average or poor compared with similar apartment buildings.

This independent benchmark can help owners corporations, strata managers and building managers identify opportunities to improve performance and prioritise upgrades.

The cost of a NABERS rating varies depending on factors such as the size and complexity of your building and the Assessor you choose.

For current pricing information, visit Pricing and Offers.

To find a NABERS Assessor to help you get your apartment building rated, visit the Find an Assessor tool.

We suggest sourcing quotes from a few NABERS Assessors to understand the scope of work, before presenting your case to your owners corporation for approval.

In most cases, you'll need:

12 months of energy and/or water data
Details about your building and common property areas
Information about relevant building services and systems

A NABERS Accredited Assessor can advise exactly what information is required for your building.

Use your rating to understand how your building is performing compared with similar apartment buildings and identify opportunities for improvement.

Many owners corporations and building managers use their rating to prioritise
upgrades, monitor performance over time and track the results of improvement projects.

Visit the After your rating page for guidance on what to do with your NABERS rating after you’re certified.

Historically, NABERS ratings for apartment buildings excluded common property domestic hot water systems. This exclusion allowed a building to achieve 100% on the NABERS Renewable Energy Indicator, even if it used a gas-powered system for central domestic hot water.

NABERS has secured funding to address these gaps and has implemented the necessary steps to ensure central gas hot water systems are appropriately considered within the rating. The project is progressing as planned and will be fully completed by July 2027.

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

The latest on apartment buildings

30 Jul 2026