Better Building Finance (BBF) is an expert third party administrator of Environmental Upgrade Finance. BBF was established by the City of Melbourne in 2010 with support from Federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science as part of the Energy Efficiency Information Grants Program. Now BBF is supported by, and received funding from, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). BBF is a program of the Sustainable Australia Fund, to support councils to join this program and open the market for better buildings across Australia. Find out more.
We work as a facilitator with businesses, lenders and councils to manage environmental upgrade agreements – low cost funding for environmental upgrades. Find out more.
In 2010 legislation is passed in the City of Melbourne to enable Environmental Upgrade Finance, and in NSW for Building Upgrade Finance (BUF), incorporating heritage upgrades. In 2015 the Victorian legislation was updated to allow all councils in Victoria to participate.
Enabling legislation for this form of finance has been passed in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Then, individual councils need to join the program and begin offering it to local businesses. You can see a list of the councils BBF work with here.
An Environmental Upgrade Agreement (EUA), is the tripartitie agreement between a lender, local council and property owner to upgrade their building’s environmental performance.
Both terms refer to the finance agreement between building owner, council and lender that aims to make environmental upgrades possible to existing buildings.
In South Australia and New South Wales the legislation is known as Building Upgrade Finance (BUF) and can include heritage upgrades. That’s it!
To join in and start offering local businesses affordable environmental finance, councils need to cover off delegations, training, documentation, legislative requirements, risk management and application processes.
No, BBF is a third party administration service for councils. BBF’s expert team guide councils through the whole process of joining this program, and then administering the loans for them. They can otherwise choose to self-administer and do it themselves.
BBF work with the vast majority of participating councils in Victoria and NSW. Check out the full list of our council partners here.
There are many great reasons councils should consider this program, including:
In 2019 BBF was nominated for the Victorian Premier’s Sustainability Award and won the National Economic Development Award for Excellence in Partnerships.
In 2018 BBF & our Council partners achieved:
While there is an administrative component to this program, BBF handles a lot of it for council, and does so at no upfront cost.
Get in touch with our team and we can arrange a time to chat to your teams about whether this is the right move for you.
To be eligible, businesses must be within a participating council municipality. Not all councils offer EUF, so check if your council does, or talk to a member of the Better Building Finance team. You also need to ensure that:
This includes Agriculture, Commercial Office Building, Tourism and Commercial and Industrial properties.
Environmental finance is borrowed from a participating funding partner. Check out our partners’ page to see who offers this type of finance.
You will be required to pay an administrative fee, which can be included in the overall finance amount. Fees vary based on council area, to find out how much you would pay, talk to us.
Repayments are made directly to your council through your rates. The council will then make repayments to the finance provider.