Increased Vacancy Presents Waterwise Office Program Opportunities

Recent data released by the Property Council of Australia indicates office vacancy rates have reached their highest levels in more than 20 years. As a result of new supply and weaker demand for existing offices, the office vacancy rate in the Perth CBD increased from 19.6 per cent to 21.8 per cent for the six months to June 2016.

This provides Perth’s commercial building owners and managers with an opportunity to stand out and be recognised for best practice water use through the Waterwise Office Program. The program is run by Water Corporation in partnership with the Property Council of Australia and City of Perth.

Based on water use per Net Lettable Area (NLA), buildings can achieve a bronze, silver, gold or platinum waterwise rating through the Waterwise Office Program. Participants also receive free resources, education and branding to promote your building’s water efficiency performance, to help attract and retain tenants.

In 2016, a total of 11 buildings were recognised through the Waterwise Office Program for helping to save 60 million litres of water based on their water consumption in 2014-15.

To find out if your building is already eligible for recognition, assess your building’s water use against the benchmarks in the table below:

 

Recognition level	Water-cooled (*kL/m2/annum)	Air-cooled (*kL/m2/annum)
Bronze (Industry baseline)	0.86	0.71
Silver	0.75	0.61
Gold	0.61	0.48
Platinum (Best practice)	0.48	0.35

*1,000 litres per square meter per year

For more information about the Waterwise Office Program, visit watercorporation.com.au/waterwiseoffice, email [email protected]  or phone (08) 9420 2706.

Buildings eligible for waterwise status will be recognised on World Water Day on 22 March 2017, so make sure you submit your application before 30 January 2017 to be recognised!