The Better Buildings Partnership is working to support commercial building occupants to take action to improve their own business performance and to work with their building owner to improve overall building performance.
Tenants are responsible for over half of the energy use of buildings. Therefore engaging tenants is essential for continued performance improvement of an asset. Collaborating with and empowering tenants to improve the environmental performance of their workplace saves energy and operational costs and creates healthier, happier and more productive staff. Landlords are best placed to support tenants, but committees in buildings, property managers and other experts should also take part in the process.
Key projects
The Better Buildings Partnership works with the CitySwitch Green Office program to engage and educate tenants. Running for over 10 years, CitySwitch is an engaged network of business leaders working with state and local governments to drive better environmental performance in commercial buildings. The BBP has collaborated with the program to create a range of resources including the business case for choosing a high performing building, and a toolkit designed to help foster a vertical community in a multiple tenanted building to achieve common sustainability goals.
Much of the partnership’s work aims to streamline and enable conversations between tenants and landlords, whether by driving demand for high-performing buildings, creating clauses for best practice leases that set a framework for collaboration, or providing template documents for tenants, property managers and owner meetings as a committee for change within each building. The partnership also collaborates with leading industry bodies and other organisations including the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage’s Sustainability Advantage program and Green Building Council of Australia to expand its reach over 7000 office businesses in the Sydney CBD.
