VIBE's writer Carli Schoenleber recently wrote an article for the Journal of Property Management regarding Navigating benchmarking laws and building performance standards. This topic will be covered in VIBE's upcoming guidance report regarding Corporate ESG Strategies which you can rsvp for here.
The role of buildings in contributing to global carbon emissions has put the real estate industry under increasing pressure to decarbonize. Two critical policies driving the industry to achieve climate targets are benchmarking ordinances and building performance standards (BPS). With benchmarking ordinances, properties are required to report their energy use to the city or state annually. In some jurisdictions, that data is publicly accessible. With BPS, properties are required to meet a certain threshold of performance and, if necessary, make energy efficiency upgrades to meet that threshold. The spread of these rules across U.S. cities and states has been both embraced and met with controversy within the industry. The laws also hold the potential to accelerate climate action in commercial real estate. To sort through this, let’s delve into the history of benchmarking and BPS, uncover opportunities and challenges with these laws, and explore how the industry is navigating compliance in the face of economic uncertainty.
Link to the original article - Lean and green - JPM (jpmonline.org)