CREJ

12 / 32

Page 12 — Property Management Quarterly — January 2018
I n early 2017, the White
House’s administration’s bud-
getary draft recommended
the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency start “developing
legislative options and associated
groundwork for transferring owner-
ship and implementation of Energy
Star to a nongovernmental entity,”
generating concern over the future
of the program.
Founded in 1992, the EPA’s Energy
Star program has been influential
in advancing energy efficiency
within the built environment. As
commercial buildings and plants
account for nearly half the coun-
try’s energy use and generate sub-
stantial emissions, the program
was expanded to include an energy
performance rating system for
buildings and facilities, providing a
means to track such performances
with its free online Portfolio Man-
ager tool. Benchmarking is deter-
mined by comparing buildings
nationwide comprised of the same
primary use, and data comes from
the Commercial Building Energy
Consumption Survey.
Today, more than 450,000 com-
mercial buildings are benchmarked
with Energy Star with several stud-
ies showing that energy-efficient
buildings, including Energy Star
certified facilities, may generate
higher rents, higher occupancy
rates, increased sales prices and
stronger risk mitigation.
• Energy Star benchmarking ordi-
nances. To increase transparency
and incentivize efficiency, many
local and state authorities began
requiring their building stock to
track and decrease energy usage.
As of Septem-
ber 2017, 29 cit-
ies nationwide,
including Boulder
and Denver, rely
on Portfolio Man-
ager as a founda-
tion for their ener-
gy benchmarking
and transparency
policies.
Denver’s 2007
Executive Order
123 required all
new munici-
pal buildings
be constructed and designed to
earn Energy Star certification
and ordered existing city owned-
and-operated buildings to track
and report annual energy use via
Portfolio Manager. Newer initia-
tives call for decreasing energy
consumption of commercial and
multifamily buildings by 10 percent
by the end of 2020, and double that
in the following decade. To do so,
in 2017, the city began requiring
buildings over 50,000 square feet
use Portfolio Manager to annu-
ally benchmark their energy use
and report their Energy Star score;
buildings over 25,000 sf must start
in 2018. Buildings failing to comply
after a certain grace period face a
$2,000 penalty.
Denver also hosts an ongoing vol-
untary benchmarking and resource
reduction competition called Watts
to Water. Applicable buildings par-
ticipate by tracking and reporting
energy and water consumption
in Portfolio Manager, measuring
reductions against a 2010 baseline.
Buildings with the greatest reduc-
tions in energy and water-use
intensity at the end of each year
are awarded and recognized for
their efforts.
“We’ve found Energy Star highly
effective in demonstrating energy-
efficiency progress to third parties
including tenants and ownership,”
said Sandy Robinson, vice presi-
dent of JLL’s Independence Plaza
in Denver and winner of the 2016
Watts to Water Visionary Award.
“We’ve improved our score by at
least 10 points over the years,
something we are very proud of …
suffice to say, losing Energy Star
would be unfortunate!”
Fifty-three percent of Boulder’s
greenhouse gas emissions come
from commercial and industrial
buildings. In 2016, the Boulder
Building Performance Ordinance
mandated existing buildings over
50,000 sf, new commercial and
industrial buildings over 10,000
sf, and city-owned buildings over
5,000 sf begin annually tracking
and reporting energy use in Portfo-
lio Manager. The progressive ordi-
nance also calls for implementing
Sustainability
Jon Moeller
CEO, MACH
Energy, San
Francisco
MACH Energy