Rick Dimino

The city of Boston’s recent adoption of regulations and policies for the latest version of its Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance, known as BERDO 2.0, represents a very important step in supporting climate emission goals.

Over the course of two years, Mayor Michelle Wu’s staff engaged with a large range of stakeholders and heard from the business community about the realities of the commercial real estate industry. Both the public and private sectors deserve a lot of credit for working through dense and complex topics to find a balance that advances climate goals while also protecting our economy.

BERDO 2.0 regulates existing buildings in Boston, both non-residential buildings over 20,000 square feet and residential buildings with 15 or more units. Although these 6,000 buildings account for only 5 percent of Boston’s buildings, they account for 40 percent of Boston’s emissions, so if the new regulations are successful, then they will lead to a significant reduction in city-wide emissions reduction. BERDO 2.0 regulations set a detailed schedule of emissions reductions by typology until 2050 when all building types are required to be zero emissions.

However, the new regulations are not a one-size-fits-all approach, containing different compliance start dates for different sizes of buildings. For example, non-residential buildings of larger than 35,000 square feet and residential buildings with 35 or more units start compliance in 2025 while non-residential buildings of 20,000-34,999 square feet and residential buildings with 15-34 units have until 2030 to begin compliance.

City Learned from Biz Input

During the two-year development of these regulations, the city’s BERDO team, led by Commissioner Alison Brizius, adopted a collaborative and transparent process with the business community and stakeholders. The city’s team has learned about many of the challenges for different types of buildings in Boston, and what it will take to comply with the regulations. This has resulted in the regulations including flexibility measures such as BERDO’s blended emissions standards, individual compliance schedules, building Portfolios and hardship compliance plans.

The city’s responsiveness to stakeholder input, extensive engagement opportunities, and flexibility in accommodating requests have set a benchmark for regulatory processes that is a model for other city-wide policy processes and is hopefully one that other jurisdictions will emulate as well. Applying lessons learned across agencies and jurisdictions is essential to policy alignment for all plans relating to climate goals.

By the same token, the engagement of A Better City and our member companies in this process was instrumental in finding a solutions-oriented approach to many of the challenges that arose. The property owners and managers, developers, and technical experts who participated by sending comments and constructive feedback at every stage of this regulatory process ensured the city would gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of these policies.

The result is a set of regulations and policies that have been vastly improved by stakeholder input that will benefit all BERDO buildings. But the voice of the business community has not just informed the BERDO 2.0 process, but has also informed the emissions reduction policies in Cambridge, the state’s Clean Energy and Climate Plan, the updated Stretch Energy Code, the Opt-In Specialized Stretch Energy Code and Boston’s draft Zero Net Carbon Zoning.

What to Plan for Next

As we reflect on this accomplishment, it’s crucial to identify the next steps essential for BERDO 2.0’s continued success.

For the business community, that means planning for the compliance milestones ahead.

As compliance over time will be increasingly challenging, building owners and managers must review their capital plans at an individual building level, at a building portfolio level or through institutional planning to understand what needs to happen by when to ensure compliance.

The business community must also continue to engage in helping the public sector in the years ahead. Engagement will continue through the BERDO Review Board’s working groups. Two working groups have been established so far: one representing the commercial real estate sector and one representing the health care and district energy sector.

A Better City has been asked to chair the Review Board’s commercial real estate working group, which is a diverse group representing various stakeholders in commercial real estate with the goal of discussing topics and potential issues that arise for commercial real estate stakeholders in relation to BERDO, which are then reported to the BERDO Review Board for consideration.

For the city’s BERDO team, next steps include continuing to listen to stakeholder’s challenges as they move from planning to implementation and being willing to make adjustments to the regulations along the way. This flexibility and willingness to hear concerns and challenges that fueled the BERDO regulations’ and policies’ development process, must continue if we are to get this building performance standard right.

Ultimately, the new regulations are not an endpoint but a catalyst for sustained commitment and action. The business community can offer valuable experiences and insight to shape a more sustainable and resilient future in Greater Boston that is a model for policymakers nationwide. If Boston leads the way on climate issues, then other cities can see this is not only possible here, but also that the business community wants to be a willing partner to create building emission reduction policies that work for both environment goals and for our commercial real estate sector’s economic interests.

Rick Dimino is president emeritus of A Better City and a member of the MassDOT board of directors.