Cities require large buildings to disclose energy use
More cities are requiring commercial buildings to disclose their energy use to the public. The idea is to hold building owners accountable to the public and ignite competition among large buildings to lower energy use. Governing Magazine reports:
Increasingly, cities like Austin, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., along with California and Washington state, are mandating that large buildings perform energy audits that will be benchmarked against other buildings of a similar size, configuration and age. While the concept of benchmarking isn’t entirely new -- the historic Dexter Horton building in downtown Seattle has been doing it for several years, and Arlington County, Va., started benchmarking county office buildings in 2001 -- mandating that the results be made public is.
In 2008, the District of Columbia became the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to require that all public buildings and all commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet disclose their energy and water usage via a public website. To rate the energy performance, building owners collect utility data, and then report it to the city through the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star Portfolio Manager website. By making monthly power bills a matter of public record, D.C. hopes to motivate property owners to adopt energy-efficient technologies.
Saving energy might seem like a good enough motivator, but that's not be the only reason programs like this could be successful at decreasing energy use. Landlords looking to attract renters -- from individuals to large corporations -- in the city will need to make sure they don't come off as energy hogs. Now renters looking to lower their carbon footprint can make a much more informed decision than ever before on energy use in the building where they do their day-to-day business.
And with buildings accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total energy use in U.S., it's no small decision.
Photo: Thomas Hawk/Flickr
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com