In Boston today, large commercial and residential buildings account for more than a third of the city’s total greenhouse gas emissions. We also have some of the highest energy and water costs in the country, though our largest buildings have the most opportunity for cost-effective investments in energy and water efficiency.
Increased investments in energy efficiency are a boon to Boston’s economy; for every dollar invested, there is a $3 to $4 return in energy cost savings and local job creation. In order to promote continuous improvement and lead by example in protecting our climate, Mayor Menino recently filed the Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure ordinance with the Boston City Council.
The ordinance would require large commercial and residential buildings to each year disclose their whole building energy and water use as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Based on the principle that what gets measured gets managed, the ordinance will allow building owners to compare and benchmark efficiency progress against similar buildings, encouraging increased energy and water efficiency investments in buildings throughout the city. By collecting and publicly disclosing whole building energy and water use information, the city of Boston aims to bring a sense of competition among building owners and provide tenants and prospective buyers with valuable information.
It is important to understand what this ordinance does not do: It does not make any utility cost information available to the public; it does not collect or release energy or water use of any individual tenant, condo owner or business; and it does not require buildings to achieve any particular level of energy efficiency or penalize buildings for their performance.
The ordinance simply provides information on a building as a whole to the marketplace and the public. The city can then use this information to develop targeted, technical assistance and financial support programs to help buildings continue to improve their performance.
‘Critical Component’
This ordinance is modeled after similar requirements in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Stemming from a recommendation of the mayor’s private sector Climate Action Leadership Committee, it is a critical component of the City’s Climate Action Plan.
Rolled out over the next four years and using the U.S. EPA’s widely-utilized (and free) Energy Star Portfolio Manager program, the ordinance would eventually cover the roughly 1,700 commercial buildings and 300 residential buildings in Boston that are larger than 25,000 square feet or 25 units. The city’s utilities are currently developing the ability to provide whole building utility use information directly to building owners, as is done today in NYC and San Francisco, thus avoiding the need for landlords to get annual utility use data from tenants. Once every five years, buildings that are either not efficient for their comparable type, or not showing improvement would have to conduct an energy efficiency assessment to identify cost effective efficiency investment opportunities. Through the Mass Save Multi-Family Program, these assessments would be free to residential building owners.
Massachusetts is ranked No. 1 for having the most generous funding available in the U.S. for supporting energy efficiency investments. This ordinance does not require any actual investments to be made by building owners, but is rather intended to provide market transparency and investment information to effectively motivate the use of the generous utility incentives and rebates available to everyone for investing in energy efficiency.
The simple step of disclosing large buildings’ energy and water use will go a long way to motivating cost effective, energy efficiency investments, and help us achieve our greenhouse gas reduction goals.
Brian Swett is the chief of environment and energy for the city of Boston.
