The all-electric deadline inside Green Star v1.1

From 1 May 2026 every new project must register under Green Star Buildings v1.1. It’s a hard cutover with no transition period. If your registration isn’t lodged and paid by 30 April, you’re on v1.1, and v1.1 has one requirement that changes the maths on every commercial building project in the country: all-electric design, at every star rating.

A 4-star project and a 6-star project face the same rule. No gas, no exceptions, and no “we’ll offset it later.” The GBCA has been signalling this for years, but the mandatory date makes it real. If you have a project in pre-design with a gas-fired HVAC system specced in, the design has to change before you register.

The compliance floor moved again

The Australian Government’s October 2025 roadmap confirmed that CBD Mandatory Disclosure is expanding beyond offices to hotels and other commercial building types by 2030. That expansion comes with $20 million in federal funding and a clear trajectory. Large office tenants occupying more than 1,000 square metres will need periodic NABERS energy ratings for their tenanted areas. Hotels will need to disclose their NABERS rating at point of sale or lease.

If you’re a building owner sitting on a portfolio of mixed-fuel assets, every one of these moves narrows your options. A building that can’t achieve Green Star v1.1 certification can’t access the finance products that increasingly reference it.

The money is following the compliance signal

Compliance now decides who gets the capital.

ASFI released Australia’s Sustainable Finance Taxonomy on 17 June 2025. It’s voluntary for now, but 90 financial institutions have opted in to pilot it, including the big four banks and the CEFC. The taxonomy gives banks a common language for what counts as “green” in a lending context, and ASFI’s guidance for issuing taxonomy-aligned debt followed in March 2026.

Practically, when a bank assesses your retrofit loan application, it checks whether your project aligns with the taxonomy’s criteria. A Green Star v1.1 certified building with verified NABERS performance fits neatly into that framework. A building running dual-fuel with an unrated energy profile doesn’t.

The CEFC has up to $75 million through MaxCap Group for commercial building upgrades across offices, hotels, and retail, on the condition of a 30% reduction in operational emissions. A separate $100 million debt facility targets deep retrofits that lift a building’s NABERS rating by at least 2 stars to a minimum of 4. Both are concessional finance products, and both require measured, verified outcomes.

What to do before 1 May, and after

If you have a project registering for Green Star before 1 May, get it lodged. The certification agreement must be executed and the fee invoice paid by 30 April 2026 to register under v1. After that, it’s v1.1 only. If your design includes gas, talk to your services engineer this week.

If you’re planning a retrofit in the next 24 months, model the economics against CEFC’s criteria. A 2-star NABERS lift to 4 stars minimum opens the $100 million debt facility. Map your current rating, your target rating, and the capital required to close the gap. If the numbers work, the concessional finance is there.

If you’re a lender building green loan products, the ASFI taxonomy is your classification framework. Green Star v1.1 certification and verified NABERS performance are your verification layer. If your lending criteria don’t reference these standards yet, you’re behind 89 other institutions already piloting them.

If you hold a portfolio of CBD-affected buildings, the expansion to hotels and large tenancies is coming. Don’t wait for the consultation paper. Start rating your non-office assets now. NABERS’s own estimate is that an office moving from 4 to 6 stars saves an average of $280,000 a year.