This year Steensen Varming has focused on continuing and maintaining our sustainability initiatives thus far, as well as fine tuning and expanding this initiatives in order to squeeze out performance wherever possible.

With a star NABERS tenancy rating in their Sydney tenancy, and a purchase of 100% Green Power, Steensen Varming is continuing to operate at a high level of energy efficiency and emissions reduction. In addition, Steensen’s standards library has been moved online to reduce paper usage, swapped to eco cleaners in their London and Sydney offices to reduce chemical use, completed end of life replacements for their coffee machines which now accept ground coffee and organic pods, and have signed Sydney’s single use pledge at a platinum level.

Steensen Varming has focused its efforts on educating and promoting environmental leadership, by sharing their own office sustainable initiatives with other tenancies within their building and at other industry events.

CBRE have completed an office fit out to adopt a truly agile workspace, better utilising the new space. The NABERS tenancy rating has increased from 4.5 to 5 stars, with a saving of 7,786 kWh. The initives undertaken include: new LED lighting in the boardroom, kitchen, breakout areas, print rooms and reception, occupancy sensor control for meeting rooms, replacement of desktops with laptops, replacement of kitchen fridges and dishwashers with new energy efiicient machines and better automated control on equipment.

CBRE’s in-house Project Management team designed the space on the global CBRE 360 Guidelines. The new space has proven to be a marketing tool and promotion for the Project Team for businesses and clients considering adapting to an agile workplace.

This year, dsquared Consulting continued with their organisational Carbon Neutral Certification under the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS), as an accredited pathway to measure and account for the business’s environmental footprint. They have performed a whole business carbon account, benchmarked performance and have purchased carbon offsets, successfully continuing their accreditation as a Carbon Neutral Business. By purchasing more carbon credits than their annual carbon footprint and putting a substantial amount of renewable energy into the grid, through excess power generated on site via their solar PV array, they are becoming a Carbon Positive organisation.

dsquared have achieved a 6 star NABERS rating for their tenancy, with this being their sixth year with a NABERS rating above 5 stars. Last year, dsquared published a roadmap for other SME’s to become carbon neutral, and are active around the Adelaide community in advocating for sustainable business operations, sustainable built environments and positive industry change.

LL’s Energy and Sustainability Services (ESS) team consists of over 40 specialists across Australia, and 300 experts globally, focusing on delivering sustainability outcomes for our own operations, and those of our clients. 

Within JLL’s own office portfolio, ESS’s role includes supporting the site selection process, tenancy design, construction, and operations.  In addition to Green Star certification which is pursued at the time of fit-out, ESS has an ongoing responsibility to manage energy, water, and waste from JLL’s operations, including tracking performance via the NABERS tools. 

JLL targets rating improvements via active engagement on tenancy performance and regular feedback and action planning, and over the past four years, showing an overall trend of maintaining or improving high ratings. For new office tenancies, JLL has developed a fit-out and design guideline framework regionally in Asia Pacific, affectionately known as the “JLL Playbook”. The playbook sets out design criteria which ensures that each JLL tenancy has a similar theme along with integrating local cultural elements and local artworks, but also focuses on sustainability items such as LEED, WELL, NABERS and Green Star. 

In 2018, Cundall set an ambitious sustainability roadmap which set out far reaching targets for their offices. This included a target for the global business to be Carbon Neutral by 2020. Cundall’s Australian offices have achieved this one year ahead of schedule with the business being certified NCOS Carbon Neutral in September this year.

Cundall’s Perth office sustainability initiatives, which informed the Carbon Neutral certification, include a 5 Star NABERS tenancu rating and the purchase of Carbon Neutral paper. Despite growing in staff numbers, Cundall have maintained their 5 Star NABERS rating. This has been achieved by energy efficiency measures such as staff education and proactive computer energy usage settings; this means office emissions per person has been reduced by 12%.

Cundall is an active member of the CitySwitch community, with staff attending events and encouraging clients to participate in the scheme. They have shared their knowledge of building design with Cundall’s head of Lighting in Australia, Bettina Easton speaking at CitySwitch’s ‘Back To Basics’ event in Perth, sharing her knowledge of good lighting design for offices. Cundall recognise their role as a leader within the industry, including best practise within projects they deliver and sharing knowledge within the industry.

In the 2019 financial year the CBA Group Energy and Sustainability team has taken great steps in improving the systems in place to properly manage their environmental and energy reporting; this has resulted in the Group achieving both ISO 50001 and 14001 (energy and environmental management, respectively) accreditations. Recognising its important role as an industry leader, CBA has also partnered with the Green Building Council of Australia to develop its best practice carbon positive roadmap.

CBA’s renewable energy program, beginning in 2015, has resulted in the installation of onsite renewables at 68 sites with over 1100 kW capacity. Since 2015, over 2,500,000 kWh of renewable energy has been generated and FY19 renewable energy production equated to 1,127,507 kWh.

In 2019, 13 CBA tenancies received an accredited NABERS tenancy rating , with a weighted average of 4.68 stars. In addition CBA completed Green Star ratings for 22 retail branches using GBCA’s Volume Certification.

CBA has signed up to the RE100 commitment agreeing to source 100% renewable energy by 2050 and is well on track with over 65% of its electricity needs coming from renewable sources through a Power Purchasing Agreement. A further 25% has been agreed to and will commence January 2020.

The George Institute for Global Health (TGI) is a medical research institute with a mission to improve the lives of millions worldwide by investigating the clinical causes and social-determinants of the biggest burdens of disease: non-communicable disease and injury.  Global research shows that climate change is increasingly contributing to adverse health outcomes. Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone.

With this in mind, 15 volunteer staff established The George Greenies in 2017, formalising the committee with leadership from key management including the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer. The Environmental Sustainability Policy (ESP) was developed to underpin key principles and operating procedures accompanied by an Environmental Action Plan (EAP) - a strategy for activity based on five key themes: engagement, innovation, impact, producing outcomes, and leadership.

Since 2017, over 20 initiatives have been conducted to fulfil the objectives of TGI’s ESP, including events and seminars, waste assessments, phasing out single use plastics and an overhaul of recycling procedures. The George Institute have achieved a 5.5 star NABERS tenancy rating and switched to a green energy supplier, saving an estimated 26% on energy costs.

In the 2019 financial year the CBA Group Energy and Sustainability team has taken great steps in improving the systems in place to properly manage their environmental and energy reporting; this has resulted in the Group achieving both ISO 50001 and 14001 (energy and environmental management, respectively) accreditations. Recognising its important role as an industry leader, CBA has also partnered with the Green Building Council of Australia to develop its best practice carbon positive roadmap.

CBA’s renewable energy program, beginning in 2015, has resulted in the installation of onsite renewables at 68 sites with over 1100 kW capacity. Since 2015, over 2,500,000 kWh of renewable energy has been generated and FY19 renewable energy production equated to 1,127,507 kWh.

In 2019, 13 CBA tenancies received an accredited NABERS tenancy rating , with a weighted average of 4.68 stars. In addition CBA completed Green Star ratings for 22 retail branches using GBCA’s Volume Certification.

CBA has signed up to the RE100 commitment agreeing to source 100% renewable energy by 2050 and is well on track with over 65% of its electricity needs coming from renewable sources through a Power Purchasing Agreement. A further 25% has been agreed to and will commence January 2020.

TSA’s Green Action Team have made a concerted effort to not only improve the recycling rates around the office, but to also change the way waste is thought of. The team wanted to demonstrate that the resources which are often seen as trash are valuable. This has been achieved through education and the expansion of the recycling hub, which now has 11 waste streams (not including landfill).

Four plastic types are separated by TSA group’s waste streams, and are harvested by Precious Plastic Perth to be turned into new products. Precious Plastics Perth is a not for profit with a mission to engage and provide education to help the local community reduce and reuse their plastic consumption. The beauty of adding these plastics to the recycling hub is staff are giving to charity, just by putting trash in the right bins

TSA has continued to incorporate additional healthy building enhancements, including more plants around the office, more social areas, outdoor seating, ping pong tables and competitions, and more height adjustable desks. The Facilities manager has run workshops with business stakeholders designed to improve the workplace and therefor staff performance. Inspired by CitySwitch the facilities manager has ran a “café series” where different production staff were asked out for a coffee to discuss what the perfect workplace would look like to them. This has fed into some of the initiatives implemented.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) is committed to reducing its aggregate environmental impact from energy consumption and mitigating ongoing costs in the face of rising electricity prices. Since joining CitySwitch AFP has made great steps towards improving its performance.

Consequently, AFP’s NABERS performance has lifted considerably across the board. To this end AFP has funded, driven or enabled a number of sustainability initiatives across different tenancies within their portfolio, including: full LED lighting or controls upgrades, computer room air conditioning (CRAC) unit recommissioning, and air conditioning control refinement.

Since joining CitySwitch in 2017, an energy saving of 1,965,593 kWh has been achieved, with an improvement in NABERS tenancy ratings seen across almost all of AFP’s tenancies. This efficiency drive’s goal was, and still is, to realise the performance potential of existing, underperforming tenancies and buildings. Rather than offset poor performance with further, unnecessary technology, this process has addressed root causes; poor commissioning, latent design matters and maintenance malaise.

By participating in CitySwitch, AFP has been inspired to set an example to the wider Commonwealth; to demonstrate that policing and security operations do not need to be excessively energy intensive. This attitude has been used to set a role model for other entities.

The initiatives and projects undertaken by AFP have been shared with other Federal Government Departments including Home Affairs, Department of the Environment and Energy, Department of Agriculture and Department of Human Services to inspire and support these agencies’ endeavours to deliver similar outcomes. In particular, AFP’s approach to datacentre cooling has been put forward as the “gold standard” of how the Commonwealth should approach air conditioning provided to its critical environments.

In the 2019 financial year the CBA Group Energy and Sustainability team has taken great steps in improving the systems in place to properly manage their environmental and energy reporting; this has resulted in the Group achieving both ISO 50001 and 14001 (energy and environmental management, respectively) accreditations. Recognising its important role as an industry leader, CBA has also partnered with the Green Building Council of Australia to develop its best practice carbon positive roadmap.

CBA’s renewable energy program, beginning in 2015, has resulted in the installation of onsite renewables at 68 sites with over 1100 kW capacity. Since 2015, over 2,500,000 kWh of renewable energy has been generated and FY19 renewable energy production equated to 1,127,507 kWh.

In 2019, 13 CBA tenancies received an accredited NABERS tenancy rating, with a weighted average of 4.68 stars. In addition CBA completed Green Star ratings for 22 retail branches using GBCA’s Volume Certification.

CBA has signed up to the RE100 commitment agreeing to source 100% renewable energy by 2050 and is well on track with over 65% of its electricity needs coming from renewable sources through a Power Purchasing Agreement. A further 25% has been agreed to and will commence January 2020.

costs.

Finder launched its first CSR strategy in 2019 with one key focus of the strategy being to drive sustainable action around the office. Finder’s procurement strategy plays a big part in this, and one area for improvement wad the coffee used in the office. 

As a fast-moving, tech business, you won’t be surprised to hear that Finder gets through a lot of coffee! The used coffee grounds from the coffee machine were proving to be a nuisance to dispose of in a sustainable way and, more often than not, ended up clogging up kitchen sinks. Finder knew they could do better.

Kua is a Sydney-based social enterprise set-up in 2018 by two UNSW students called Brody Smith and Darcy Small. Kua delivers freshly roasted, ethically sourced, single origin coffee beans every fortnight to the Finder office. They also take away the spent coffee used in the previous two weeks. This coffee “waste” is then transformed by Kua into other valuable products like coffee-based soap and compost. Not only this, but Kua uses some of its profits to fund social impact projects in the regions where the coffee is bought.

Finder has bought 57kg of ethical sourced coffee from Kua, which equates to nearly 3,500 cups of coffee enjoyed by the Finder crew. The spent coffee has avoided landfill and been used in other products which has resulted in the capture of 37kg of CO2e during the process. In addition, Kua’s social impact program has meant that the partnership has directly led to 10 Ugandan women sponsored through the Cents for Seeds program.

Colliers International and Powertracker have gone above and beyond their usual service level for Octo, because of their vision to positively influence the community and drive change towards more sustainability behaviours at the workplace. The CitySwitch program offers a great platform to share such initiatives and create some broader recognition that will help lift industry best practice.

Octo Mixed Use Residential and Commercial Strata Building has had a real time remote electricity monitoring system installed as part of the new build project a few years ago. The Strata Company sought to run this service for the benefit of all lot owners and occupiers in order for them to understand their energy consumption and identify opportunities to reduce their energy use and associated costs. Powertracker and Colliers adapted the Indigo Live power monitoring dashboard for the vertical office community at Octo. Indigo Live is now available online for all Octo office occupiers.

The dashboard combines the energy use of all eight offices as a community to compare the whole building energy rating against a similar sized office building. Furthermore, the dashboard also tracks individual office lot’s energy intensity per square metre and per number of occupants. This allows for the participants to compare against each other and can provide an opportunity to start the conversation between various business owners within the building and engage them into some healthy competition between themselves.

Finder hired its first Corporate Social Responsibility Manager in September 2018 and launched its first CSR strategy soon after. The sustainable action pillar of the CSR strategy focusses on both Finder’s action around the office and on Finder’s action through their platform. This ensures that Finder goes beyond minimising their direct environmental impact as a business, by maximising the number of sustainable decisions made on their platform. Finder Green was created with the goal of becoming a hub to showcase all of the ethical, sustainable and eco-friendly options available on Finder. The new hub was created by a team of volunteers from the engineering, publishing and editorial teams at Finder around their day jobs and the first iteration was published on the site in April 2019.

Finder has achieved a 5.5-star NABERS tenancy rating, and has offset 27.8 tonnes of CO2e as part of their carbon-neutral energy plan. In addition, 5.3 tonnes of waste has been diverted from landfill, with 1.2 tonnes of food given to OzHarvest and 57kg of used coffee returned to Kua.

EML completed a refurbishment of their tenancy for 3 floors at 26 Flinders St Adelaide. The refurbishment consisted of an activity based working fitout in line with EML national approach with focus on staff wellbeing and environmental sustainability. This included the following initiatives: reducing the number of copiers and printers to one per floor, removal of under desk bins and the installation of waste stations, minimum 3.5 star rated appliances in the kitchen, LED lighting fixtures throughout the tenancy, old monitors and cabling sent as e-waste via a not for profit organisation, and excess stationery donated to local schools.

EML achieved a 5.5 star NABERS tenancy rating, with a reduction16,862 kWh on the previous year’s consumption, and a reduction in floor space as a result of maximising workstation density. The new fit out has provided an increased use of collaboration spaces and informal meeting areas reducing the requirement for supplementary AC units, and the associated clean desk policy sees all laptops and monitors shut down at the end of each day. Follow me printing has reduced paper consumption as well as reducing energy being wasted on superfluous printing.

ANZ Banking Group are striving to reduce the environmental impact of their operations as a key part of its approach to managing the sustainable growth of the business. This ambition is supported by the Sustainability Framework and includes targets to minimise energy, emission, water and waste across the business. ANZ are developing asset sustainability master plans (ASMPs) as a road map for each major asset to help achieve these sustainability targets.

ANZ Centre is an innovative building containing leading edge technologies, and continues to operate at a 5 Star NABERS Rating level, even after 10 years. It was the second building in Australia to achieve a 6 Star Green Star certification ‘trifecta’ of Design, As Built and Interiors ratings. The building has achieved an annual reduction in electricity demand of more than 12 per cent since the building’s opening.

As a result of energy audits, eight key measures were identified representing a combined energy saving potential of 950 MWh and 4,103 GJ per annum. As a result of waste initiatives. ANZ’s waste initiatives have resulted in a 21% reduction in contamination of landfill bins and an improvement of 6% in recycling between landfill/commingled bins, as well as increased staff engagement in understanding waste. In addition, a 400kW Solar array has begun construction and is expected to be completed in March 2020. This solar array will be the largest in Melbourne CBD and have an output of 500,000kWh per annum and have a 7 year payback period.