Cities
Public-Private Partnership for Citywide Retrofitting Solution by: City of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia: This solution offers building owners, tenants and investors access to long-term finance for building upgrades at attractive terms.
The Triple Bottom Line
Environmental High-performing, efficient buildings reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels.
Social Green buildings come with a better indoor climate, which supports a healthier workforce.
Melbourne’s Environmental Upgrade Agreement (EUA) system is part of the city’s efforts to meet its goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2020. It consists of an agreement between a property owner, a bank, and local government that facilitates a building upgrade to improve energy efficiency. This can include the installation of renewable energy systems or upgrades to plants and equipment such as insulation. Building owners take out a loan with a lending body, which is repaid to the bank via the local council. The loans offered by the EUA come with competitive rates over a longer time period. Local government involvement reduces risk of potential default to the bank, while the building owner can pay back the loan over 10 years, if required. Why a Sustainia100 solution?
Economic The retrofitting of existing commercial office buildings provides an excellent return on investment due to increased levels of workforce productivity.
Although 560 buildings have undertaken some form of retrofit since 2008, over 50% of emissions in Melbourne are generated by the commercial sector. If 1,200 buildings improve their energy efficiency by 38%, the equivalent of 383,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions will be avoided annually. Because access to finance can be a barrier, the EUA mechanism was developed to support building owners to fund retrofits.
Developed: Australia
Deployed: Australia
“What makes cities really successful is their ability to be agile , adaptive , innovative and cooperable. In my city we care a lot about those qualities.”
This finance mechanism enables buildings to upgrade and realize lower costs due to decreased energy consumption.
Robert Doyle, Lord Mayor, Melbourne
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