PAPERCUTSBuilding Control (Amendment) Bill
- The Building Control (Amendment) Bill introduces mandatory energy efficiency standards for large office, hotel, and retail buildings (over 15,000 sqm) when they replace or retrofit their cooling systems, requiring professional certification and three-yearly audits to maintain system performance.
- The bill mandates annual submission of energy consumption data for these buildings to enable benchmarking and supports this with enhanced financial incentives, including a co-funding scheme for retrofitting costs and a pilot loan program with risk-sharing.
- While the bill focuses on cooling systems as the primary energy consumer, it also includes non-energy efficiency provisions such as updating definitions, allowing non-qualified specialists to certify alternative solutions, and formalizing BCA’s authority to require approvals from other technical agencies before issuing occupation permits.