Everyone talks about BREEAM. But the green stamp you actually have the right to see before you sign, and the one that says the most about your own energy bill, is the one almost no tenant asks for. Here is what the energy label really tells you.
When we walk through a space with a tenant, BREEAM is usually the certification people have heard of and ask about. The energy label is almost never mentioned. That is something of a paradox, because the relationship between the two is nearly the opposite of the attention they receive. BREEAM is voluntary, and you cannot demand it. The energy label is required by law, and you have every right to ask to see it before you sign. One is a quality stamp the landlord can choose to obtain. The other is a certificate the law says the landlord must present to you.
We are regularly asked what this letter grade actually means, and whether it is worth caring about when you are "only" renting. The short answer is yes. The energy label says something about what the building will cost you to occupy, about comfort on a cold January morning, and about how well the space will hold up over the coming years. Here we go through what you need to know, and why the energy label and BREEAM are not two names for the same thing.
What the energy label actually is
Energy labelling has been mandatory when selling or letting commercial buildings since 2010, and the scheme is administered by Enova, with NVE as the supervisory authority. The energy certificate (energiattest) gives the building a grade from A to G, where A is best and G is worst, and it is valid for up to ten years.
The most important point for you as a tenant is that this is not something the landlord can opt out of. The landlord is obliged to present a valid energy certificate before the lease is signed, and you have the right to ask to see it. For commercial buildings the grade must also be calculated by an energy adviser, not by the owner, because a commercial building has more complex technical systems than a home. The cost of obtaining the certificate is the landlord's, not yours. It is an ownership cost, and not something that can simply be folded into the service charges unless it is spelled out in the agreement.
Even so, the energy standard of the Norwegian building stock is generally weak. A majority of labelled buildings end up in the lower half of the scale, and there are still few buildings that reach all the way to A. In practice that means a good energy label is a real competitive advantage for a space, not a given.
Calculated, not measured: why the label is not an energy bill
Here is a nuance worth understanding. The energy grade is calculated, not measured. It says something about the building envelope and the technical systems under normalised use, that is, how energy efficient the building itself is constructed. It says nothing about how your particular company will use the space, or how well the building is actually operated from day to day.
The consequence is that a building with energy label B can produce higher bills than expected if ventilation and heating controls are poorly run, while a building further down the scale can surprise you positively with good operation. The energy label is therefore a good starting point, but not the full answer. Our advice is to ask for both the certificate and the building's actual energy use over the past few years, if it is available. Together they give a far better picture than the letter alone.
The energy label and BREEAM are not the same thing
This is the confusion we encounter most often. The energy label and BREEAM solve two completely different tasks.
The energy label is narrow and mandatory. It measures one thing, namely energy, boils it down to a single letter, and exists because the law requires it. BREEAM is broad and voluntary. It is an environmental certification that assesses the building on everything from energy and indoor climate to materials, water, transport and waste, and gives an overall rating from Pass to Outstanding. It is administered by Grønn Byggallianse in Norway, costs considerably more, and is verified by an independent third party.
The point is that the two do not follow each other automatically. A building can be BREEAM certified and still have a middling energy label, because BREEAM measures much more than energy. And an older building can have a decent energy label without being BREEAM certified at all. As a tenant you always encounter the energy label, since it is required by law, while BREEAM mainly appears in newer and more prominent office buildings. If you want to go deeper into what BREEAM and green loans mean for you, we have written a separate guide to BREEAM, energy labels and green loans.
What changes in 2026
From 1 January 2026 the energy labelling scheme was revised for the first time in over a decade. The old scheme had two parts, a letter grade for energy and a colour scale for heating. The colour scale has now been removed, and the label is simplified to a single letter, much as we know it from household appliances.
A detail with major significance in Oslo is that buildings heated with district heating are now weighted more favourably than before. In practice, some older buildings with district heating can jump one or more grades without any physical work being done at all. That is worth remembering if you are comparing a certificate from before the new year with one from after. At the same time, the EU's revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive points towards the least energy efficient commercial buildings having to be upgraded through the 2030s. Exactly how this will be implemented in Norway is not yet settled, but the direction is clear, and it turns a weak energy label into a risk for the tenant too, not just the owner.
How to use the energy label when you are searching
You do not need to become an expert to use the energy label sensibly. The simplest step is to ask to see the energy certificate early in the process, in the same way you ask for floor plans and an overview of the service charges. Treat a grade from A to C as a quality stamp, both for comfort and for future costs. A grade of D or E should prompt you to ask the landlord whether there are plans for an upgrade. If the building lands on F or G, there is reason to raise both the service charges and what happens if new requirements force an upgrade during the lease period.
The energy label is also connected to the total cost of the space, since an energy efficient building usually means lower operating costs and therefore lower service charges over time. If you want to work through the whole picture, we have looked at how to calculate the total cost of office space in Oslo. And if you are tempted by a space that seems suspiciously cheap, it may be worth reading about the seemingly inexpensive premises that can turn out to be costly to occupy.
This is exactly the kind of assessment we help tenants with every week. We know the buildings behind the listings, we know which landlords have done the work on energy and indoor climate, and we can filter out the options that actually fit your needs. If you are looking at office space for rent in Oslo, you are welcome to get in touch and we will go through the market together.
Sources: Enova (the energy labelling scheme, the grading scale), NVE, the Ministry of Energy and regjeringen.no (the new 2026 energy labelling regulation), the Norwegian Building Authority (DiBK), Grønn Byggallianse (BREEAM-NOR), Norsk Eiendom, Eiendomshuset Malling & Co and Multiconsult, along with Spacefinder's own observations from the market.
