Skip to content
Tether
NABERS & NABERSNZ

One rating. Four returns.

A NABERS rating makes you eligible for cheaper debt, cuts your energy bills, strengthens what your asset is worth and who will lease it, and proves your performance to your bank, your board, and your tenants. Tether tracks your building all the way to its rating, then keeps it there.

NABERSNZ in New Zealand and NABERS Energy in Australia, backed by compliant metering, live rating tracking, accredited assessment, and evidence that is ready the day the assessor asks.

Talk to a NABERS specialist Walk the journey
A premium A-grade commercial office tower at dusk with an abstract energy dashboard glowing in its lobby.
The target A certified rating your bank, board, and tenants can check.
Why buildings certify

One rating pays back four ways at once.

Every buyer weights the four returns differently, but all four land on the same building. And Tether adds the return the rating alone cannot pay: your time.

4.5 stars

The rating opens the sustainable-lending door.

Certification makes the building eligible for sustainability-linked lending, with your bank confirming terms against the building and the total facility. Under NZGBC guidance, 4.5 stars is the current bar for green lending on existing offices, rising to 5 stars for debt issued from 2027. At portfolio scale the terms can apply across the whole debt facility, so rating every building is worth real money.

NZGBC sustainable finance guidance
20-25%

Earning the rating and cutting the bill are the same work.

The scheme's own analysis puts average improvement headroom at 20 to 25 percent of building energy use. The path to the rating runs through schedules, controls, plant, and metering, which is exactly where the operating cost hides. For gross-lease landlords who pay the energy bill themselves, the saving lands straight in their pocket.

NABERSNZ scheme analysis
8-18%

Rated buildings sell, lease, and refinance with more options.

Knight Frank's analysis of prime Sydney and Melbourne office sales found premiums of roughly 8 percent for NABERS-rated buildings below 5 stars and 18 percent at 5 stars and above. JLL and NZGBC found New Zealand offices holding the highest green ratings selling for up to 10 percent more and renting for up to 7 percent more. An unrated building does not lose value overnight. It loses options.

Knight Frank · JLL · NZGBC
kWh + tCO2e

One rating answers the bank, the board, and the tenants.

A certified rating carries an emissions-intensity figure alongside the energy result, and green-loan covenants now require annual kWh and tCO2e reporting from the borrower. Board, investor, and GRESB reporting stops being a quarterly project and becomes a download, with every number traceable to a measured source.

Measured, not modelled
1 click

The return the rating alone cannot pay.

The rating, the data, the evidence, and the deadline live in one place. Twelve months of validated data stays quality-checked and exports for your assessor in one click, so nothing goes missing, nothing lapses, and nobody spends a month hunting bills through inboxes, SharePoint, and spreadsheets.

The fifth return · Tether
The market has moved

No rating, no government tenancy.

A government agency taking 2,000 m² or more of a building must rate the space and hit a 4-star minimum on any new lease or renewal, and since December 2025 every occupied government office above that threshold must hold a rating. It is a mandate on the tenant, not a law on landlords, which makes it a market filter, and the private market follows the same signal.

4 stars
Minimum NABERSNZ base building rating a government tenant can lease, on any new lease or renewal.
2,000 m²
Agency occupancy that triggers the mandate, where it covers at least half the lettable area.
5 stars
Where the green-lending eligibility bar moves for debt issued from 2027, up from 4.5 today.
Late 2026
Shopping centres, retail stores, warehouses, and cold stores join the NABERSNZ scheme beyond offices.
Who certifies

Five people carry the rating. Each hears a different answer.

Three lead with money and take carbon as a bonus. One leads with carbon but still has to speak money. One has to deliver it on the ground.

  1. A chief financial officer reading lending terms beside an abstract energy-cost chart in a dusk boardroom.
    01 Owner-operator

    The finance decision-maker

    Energy is one of the biggest costs on the P&L, and a rating turns it into a lever: eligibility for sustainability-linked lending, 20 to 25 percent of operating headroom, and delivery against the net-zero commitment the board is already watching.

    TriggerA refinance, rising energy prices, or an emissions deadline
  2. A portfolio asset manager reviewing a grid of building tiles across two monitors at dusk.
    02 Fund manager

    The portfolio manager

    When the bank ties facility pricing to ratings, the terms apply across the whole debt facility, so at portfolio scale rating every building is worth real money. Certification also makes quarterly board, investor, and GRESB reporting defensible.

    TriggerA transition-loan deadline without enough rated buildings
  3. An independent property investor looking up at their mid-sized commercial building at dusk.
    03 Investor

    The independent owner

    Purely what is in it for them, in dollars. Any office can be rated, with no minimum size. A rating puts the loan in reach of sustainable finance and strengthens leasing at renewal, and a pre-assessment answers whether it pays before any commitment.

    TriggerA refinance, a vacancy, or a tenant demanding a rating
  4. A sustainability manager reviewing an abstract emissions-intensity dashboard across two monitors.
    04 Head of ESG

    The sustainability lead

    Certification is the mandate, but every project still has to survive a CFO. A certified rating carries the carbon story and the ROI in one case, with kWh and tCO2e measured against every intervention rather than modelled after the fact.

    TriggerAn upcoming rating cycle or renewal
  5. A facilities manager holding a ring binder of utility records beside a building-management cabinet.
    05 Facilities manager

    The one who delivers it

    The rating arrives as a target from above, and the grind is the data: twelve months of bills, meter reads, and drawings pulled by hand from the BMS, email, and SharePoint. With the building properly metered, the evidence arrives on its own.

    TriggerA certification target handed down with a deadline
The certification journey

Tracked to the rating, then kept there.

NABERS certification is not a one-off event. It is a rating you earn, prove, and hold, year after year, and the hard part is the data. Most owners fly blind between certifications and scramble when it is time to certify. This is the journey with the scramble removed.

A building's NABERSNZ rating climbing from 2.7 stars to a held 4.5 stars over 24 months, crossing the 4-star government lease minimum and reaching the 4.5-star sustainable-lending bar. Four beats are marked along the climb: assess, track, hold, certify. 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 Month 0 6 12 18 24 GOVERNMENT LEASE MINIMUM · 4.0 SUSTAINABLE-LENDING BAR · 4.5 01 02 03 04
  1. 01 Assess

    See what your building can do

    It starts with an assessment. Tether reads the building's data and shows the rating it holds today and the rating it can realistically reach, so the target is clear before any work or commitment begins.

  2. 02 Track

    Track the climb, live

    As changes go in, the platform tracks the rating moving toward the goal. You see whether the building is actually getting closer, with no surprises and no waiting until year-end to find out.

  3. 03 Hold

    Stay certification-ready

    Once the rating lands, monitoring keeps running: data completeness is checked and the rating is watched. If something slips, you know early, while it is still cheap to fix, instead of on assessment day.

  4. 04 Certify

    Certify with the evidence in hand

    When it is time to rate or re-rate, twelve months of validated evidence is already gathered and quality-checked, exportable for the assessor in one click. Certification happens when the data supports it.

Illustrative base building climb. Your building's starting rating, realistic target, and timeline come out of the first assessment. With twelve months of energy data in hand, a certified rating is generally a six-to-eight-week exercise; without it, metering starts that clock now.
Certification, your way

Run it yourself, or let Tether drive.

Every engagement starts the same way: a pre-assessment that locks the scope and the pathway, and tells you whether the rating you need is realistically within reach. If the answer is no, that is where it ends. From there, choose how you want to run the journey.

A building owner working through an abstract rating-tracking dashboard at their own desk in the evening.
Self-managed

Manage it yourself, on the platform

For owners who want control, their own suppliers, and their own pace.

  • Your rating prediction, live against the target
  • An action plan with real supplier quotes
  • A board and bank-ready business case
  • ROI, energy, carbon, and rating reporting
  • An evidence pack that exports in one click

You run the execution: your suppliers, your sequence, and your own annual certification assessment.

A Tether specialist leading an annual site visit through a plant room beside a facilities manager.
Managed · NABERS as a Service

Or let Tether drive

For owners who want it handled, with someone accountable for getting there.

  • Everything in the platform, plus the accredited assessment
  • Submission and renewal managed end to end
  • Quarterly optimisation reviews and an annual site visit
  • Our experts advising your installers when questions come up
  • Certification when the building is ready, not on a fixed date

The guarantee: if we miss an agreed monthly deliverable that is in our control, we credit the next month's fee. The outcome stays the goal. The accountability stays with us.

On either path, physical upgrades are delivered by your suppliers. The only installations Tether performs are its own metering devices and BMS integrations. Scope and fees are confirmed against your building on a call, before any commitment.

A consultant hands you a report. Tether stays with the building.

Why Tether

Built on the rules the assessor checks.

A rating survives on the quality of its evidence. Tether's metering, monitoring, and assessment practice is built to the scheme's own validation rules, so the file that reaches the assessor is the file that passes.

A registered electrician photographing the reading of a newly installed sub-meter inside a commercial switchboard.
Validated at source Every meter signed off, photographed, and re-checked to the scheme's rules.

Metering the rules accept

NABERSNZ never assumes a new meter is valid. Every meter Tether installs is validated at installation with Registered Electrical Engineer sign-off, at least 10 percent are re-validated each year as the rules require, and remote reads are checked against photographed readings.

Base building, done properly

A base building rating requires landlord services cleanly separated from tenant power. Without that sub-metering a building is forced into a whole-building rating, and the owner ends up chasing tenants for consumption data. Metered properly, the evidence arrives on its own.

Accredited assessment, managed

On NABERS as a Service the accredited assessment, the submission, and the renewal calendar are handled inside the service. The rating is lodged when the data supports it, so assessment day is a formality rather than a deadline.

Proven on a real tower

NABERSNZ 3.5 to 4.5 in nine months with no major capex on a 14,000 m² Auckland CBD A-grade office: pathway prepared, climb tracked, and evidence held the same way this page describes.

Read the story
Common questions

The schemes, the rating, the process, and the fit.

Pick a topic. Everything below is confirmed against your building on the first call, before any commitment.

What is the difference between NABERS and NABERSNZ?
NABERS is the Australian rating scheme, running for more than two decades. NABERSNZ is the New Zealand adaptation, administered by the New Zealand Green Building Council. Both rate a building's measured energy performance over twelve months of real data, from 1 to 6 stars. It is a performance rating, not a design badge: the building has to earn it, then keep earning it.
Which buildings can be rated?
Any office can be rated, with no minimum size. Shopping centres, retail stores, warehouses, and cold stores join the NABERSNZ scheme from late 2026, in an expansion already funded and piloting from mid-2026, so the pathway most owners start on today extends across the portfolio tomorrow.
What is a base building rating?
It rates the services the landlord controls: HVAC, lifts, and common areas. It is the rating banks and government tenants ask for, and it requires landlord services to be cleanly sub-metered from tenant power. Without that separation the building is forced into a whole-building rating, which means chasing tenants for their consumption data every year.
What rating does the market ask for?
4 stars is the minimum for a government tenancy on any new lease or renewal, with agencies told to aim for 5. Under NZGBC sustainable finance guidance, 4.5 stars is the current eligibility bar for green lending on existing offices, and that bar rises to 5 stars for debt issued from 2027. Two thresholds, one pathway.
How long does certification take?
If the building already holds twelve months of clean energy data, a certified rating is generally a six-to-eight-week exercise. If it does not, metering starts that clock now, and the platform keeps the data valid from day one so the wait only ever happens once.
Do we need to install new equipment first?
No. It starts with an assessment of the data the building already has. Metering is only added where a base building rating requires landlord and tenant loads to be separated, and the only installations Tether performs are its own metering devices and BMS integrations.
What does the certification work cost?
There is no rate card on this page because there is no honest one-size answer: scope depends on the building, its metering, its data condition, and the rating you need. We confirm scope and fees on a call before any commitment, and the first step tells you whether the rating you need is realistically in reach.
Who delivers the physical upgrades?
Your suppliers do, or partners from our marketplace. Tether assesses, plans, meters, tracks, and manages certification; it does not install or project manage physical works. On NABERS as a Service, our experts advise your installers directly when questions come up on site.
Talk to Tether

Tell us the building. We will tell you the pathway.

Share the asset, the market, and the rating you need. A NABERS specialist replies with the realistic target, the state of your data, and the next step. Scope is confirmed before anything starts, and if certification is not worth it for your building, we will say so.

Talk to a NABERS specialist Run a free building check