Boston, New York City, and Seattle All Require Benchmarking in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager…Will Your City Be Next?

Last week, the EPA released its ranking of the top 25 metro areas with the highest number of ENERGY STAR certified buildings. We here at Urjanet are proud to see Atlanta, the city of our headquarters, listed at #3 this year. In most metropolitan areas, commercial and industrial buildings can account for nearly 70% of a city’s carbon emissions. Fortunately, more and more cities and municipalities are becoming aware of this staggering statistic, and are taking steps to reduce their impact on the environment. Today, commercial and industrial building owners are provided with a variety of resources and tools to assist them with monitoring and tracking energy and water consumption. One of the most commonly used applications is the EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.

Because ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager is so widely adopted across the United States, it serves as a great tool to benchmark building performance against similar buildings throughout the country. Portfolio Manager is seen by many as the national standard for energy management, with numerous building owners and managers, healthcare organizations, sports teams, cities and municipalities already using the tool. To date, Portfolio Manager services 40% of commercial buildings in the U.S. and 35% of the Fortune 500. In fact, some cities, including Boston, New York City, and Seattle, are requiring that commercial and industrial buildings use Portfolio Manager.

These cities are among a growing list of those that have created ordinances that require building energy consumption data be disclosed within ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. Recently, several more municipalities in different cities publicly published their intent to adopt Portfolio Manager. This list includes municipalities with proposed policies located in Portland, OR, Atlanta, GA, Boulder, CO, and Evanston, IL. Even if your city doesn’t mandate the use of Portfolio Manager, there’s a chance that it has perhaps launched a voluntary campaign or incentive program leveraging the tool. These ordinances and voluntary programs are generally developed in conjunction with a city’s commitment to aggressively reduce its carbon emissions in the near future.

With many of our nation’s most progressive cities leading the pack in energy benchmarking with Portfolio Manager, there is no question that many others will soon follow suit. When they do, commercial, industrial, and even residential buildings will be expected to get their act together to make sure their building data is accurately represented within the tool. If you are a building owner or real estate investor managing multiple facilities and haven’t taken the steps to benchmark with Portfolio Manager yet, this task can seem daunting, especially if you aren’t currently working with a third party to help get the data into Portfolio Manager.

Whether your organization has commercial, industrial, or residential buildings of its own, or is an energy solutions provider serving these sectors, Urjanet’s automated data feed and integration with Portfolio Manager can send your or your clients’ buildings’ energy and water consumption data directly into the tool itself.

Why wait for the energy benchmarking ordinance in your city to get approved? Get ahead today by discussing your Portfolio Manager needs with Urjanet, and give yourself peace of mind when that day arrives.

Related Resources:

• A Day in the Life of a Sustainability Professional
• 3 Ways to Improve Your ENERGY STAR Score
• Announcing: Urjanet Utility Interval Data

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