Better Buildings Partnership

Green leadership for Sydney’s commercial and public buildings

Led by the City of Sydney, the Better Buildings Partnership aims to address the challenges facing the commercial property sector and help Sydney become one of the world’s top sustainable cities.

The collaboration aims to:

• improve the energy, water and waste efficiency of buildings within our area
• help facilitate the roll-out and connection to green infrastructure, such as the proposed trigeneration and recycled-water networks
• engage with regulators and governments on key environmental policy and regulatory issues.

With the Better Buildings Partnership representing over half the office floorspace across Sydney’s city centre, these commercial landlords have an important role to play in improving the energy, water and waste efficiency of Sydney’s existing buildings. The founding members are:

• AMP Capital Investors
• Brookfield Office Properties Australia
• Charter Hall
• City of Sydney
• Colonial First State
• DEXUS Property Group
• Frasers Property
• The GPT Group
• Investa Property Group
• Lend Lease
• Mirvac
• Stockland
• The University of Sydney
• The University of Technology.

2015 update

Executives from the Better Buildings Partnership came together on Wednesday 11 November 2015 to recognise the partnership’s achievements in its first 5 years.

The group of leading commercial property owners and managers has committed to supporting the Sydney 2030 vision and is demonstrating how effective new models of collective action can be to unlock complex barriers around change.

Under the banner of 'moving industry forward together', the partnership has worked with industry professionals to create and embed new best-practice standards in 5 key areas:

• leasing
• operational waste
• refurbishment waste
• solar installations
• optimising water use.

In 2015, BBP members reduced their emissions by 45% since 2006, placing them over halfway to their 70% emissions reduction target by 2030.

The partnership, which represents more than half of Sydney's commercial floor space in the city centre, has slashed energy bills by $30 million a year since it was established, avoiding over 145,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in the past year alone.

Members have improved the overall sustainability performance of their buildings with measures such as building system upgrades and green infrastructure, including trigeneration and recycled water networks.