BESS tool for ESD reports

In the planning permit stage, governing councils in Victoria require applicants to provide evidence of how their designs are environmentally sustainable and meet the council targets/benchmarks. Depending on the scale of the project, evidence of sustainable design must be provided in the framework of ESD management plans (SDA report for small-scale and SMP for large-scale buildings). Built Environment Sustainability Scorecard (BESS) is a scorecard to assess and prove that a building complies with Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) requirements of a local council.

At Energy Compliance, we offer all avenues to demonstrate your building compliance under any conditions.

Quality

We use realistic design assumptions to better resemble actual building performance and save construction costs.
We utilize our expertise, our past experience and client preferences to conduct the best solution possible.

Service Guarantee

Our reports are council ready and we deliver on time. If we fail to deliver what we promised, and you decide not to use our report, you won’t have to pay the remainder of our invoice.

Quick Turnaround

Quotations: Same business day of inquiry.
BESS reports: 5-10 business days (depends on the complexity and the initial degree of compliance).

The benefits of BESS

• BESS is a free online tool to use and practice.
• It covers almost all Building Classes.
• It covers nine categories in a sustainable building design
• It is simple and very easy to use.
• BESS reports are accredited by all Victorian councils as it is a tool solely used for SDA and SMP assessments.
• Other than its in-built calculator, it allows for an external report using modelling software results (i.e. for daylighting or energy use).
• It is user-friendly with an internal straightforward guide to use.
• It can be used as a learning tool for those who seek to study more about sustainable building design

How scoring system works?

BESS scoring simply depends on the degree of sustainable elements and efforts in each of the nine sustainability categories. Each category has its own weight and depending on the degree of sustainability and weighting of each category, the final score is generated within BESS online tool. Category weighting in the current version of BESS are:

BESS is a tool that was created by the Victorian Council Alliance for a Sustainable Built Environment. This tool is an integrated form of old STEPS and SDS tools that were used for residential and non-residential developments and is equivalent to BASIX in New South Wales.

following categories require mandatory pass scores:

BESS final overall score as an acceptable outlet would be:

• Best practice: where proposed building achieves 50% or higher.
• Excellence: where the proposed building achieves 70% or higher.

In summary, the BESS report demonstrates how the proposed building performs in each sustainability categories relative to the total points available. This report also determines which elements of the report must be reflected in the architectural plans and which document must be uploaded/delivered to BESS as evidence of sustainable design.

Which Victorian councils require BESS report?

As of 2021, 26 out of 79 Victorian councils (33%) require some mandatory assessments and also encourage voluntary efforts to address elements of sustainability in the planning permit process. Among Victorian councils that require these assessments are:

• Banyule City Council
• City of Bayside
• Brimbank City Council
• Darebin City Council
• City of Greater Geelong
• Glen Eira City Council
• City of Greater Dandenong
• Hobsons Bay City Council
• Hume City Council
• City of Kingston
• Knox City Council
• Manningham City Council
• Maribyrnong City Council
• Maroondah City Council
• City of Melbourne
• City of Monash
• Moonee Valley City Council
• Moreland City Council
• City of Greater Bendigo
• City of Port Phillip
• City of Stonnington
• City of Whitehorse
• City of Whittlesea
• Wyndham City
• City of Yarra
• Yarra Ranges Shire Council