A report released by the City of Melbourne reveals that a transformation is underway in Melbourne’s commercial building stock.

Since 2008, at least 145 buildings have upgraded or are planning to upgrade to more sustainable systems and fit outs.

The ‘1200 Buildings, Melbourne Retrofit Survey 2013’ explores the retrofit activity of older office buildings in Melbourne, with results revealing that 25 per cent of the 289 buildings surveyed have made significant changes to their systems.

If this percentage is extrapolated to include the entire sample of buildings (2,256), the number currently retrofitting equates to 560 buildings.

Lighting upgrades were the most common retrofit activity, followed by installing or upgrading building management systems, metering and upgrading chillers and boilers.

Key motivations for these actions included replacing broken assets, minimising energy consumption, attracting or retaining tenants, as well as extending the life of assets.

The heritage listed Alto Hotel on Bourke, Melbourne’s first carbon neutral hotel, is one of the upgraded buildings. It was intensively renovated to achieve superior performance in energy, water and waste efficiency.

“The survey results have confirmed what we already suspected – that a lot more retrofitting is going on in our city than we knew about,” said Environment Portfolio Chair Councillor, Arron Wood.

“Taking this temperature check gives us a better understanding of building managers’ motivations and helps us adapt our own programs to better address their needs.”

It was further revealed in the report that 16 per cent of building owners and representatives surveyed planned to undertake a retrofit within the next five years – a jump of six per cent from two years ago, when 10 per cent said they were planning a retrofit.

This means that between 2008 and 2018, 32 per cent of buildings will be or have recently done work which improves environmental outcomes.

As the second in a biennial series of surveys of building owners that quantifies retrofit activity in the city, the Melbourne Retrofit Survey 2013 consisted of 589 phone interviews with building owners and their representatives.

It aimed at measuring the number of retrofits, types of upgrades, attitudes to perceived barriers to retrofitting, as well as awareness of the City of Melbourne’s 1200 Buildings Program.

The City of Melbourne has received a number of awards for its work in sustainability in recent months, including the C40 award in London, and awards for its Smart Blocks and 1200 Buildings programs.

Currently, the commercial building sector generates greater than 50 per cent of the municipality of Melbourne’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“It takes the efforts of an entire city however to be recognised on this level. We know that achieving some of our goals including becoming carbon neutral by 2020 cannot be done alone,” says Wood.

“We applaud the buildings that have already embraced these changes and we will continue to work with other building managers through programs like 1200 Buildings to encourage more of this activity.”

The 1200 Buildings program aims to encourage and support building owners, managers and facility managers to improve their energy and water efficiency, as well as reduce waste to landfill of commercial buildings in the municipality of Melbourne.

To read the full survey, please click HERE or visit http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/1200buildings/Documents/1200_Buildings_Report_FA_LR_Dec2013.pdf.

1200 Buildings Program: how an environmental upgrade agreement between building owner, bank and City of Melbourne works

Images: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/1200buildings/