by Brianna Crandall — May 10, 2013—The Boston City Council approved Mayor Tom Menino’s citywide Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure Ordinance on May 8, making it the eighth city in the nation to pass such a law. The Ordinance requires large commercial and residential buildings to report and disclose their energy and water usage and greenhouse gas emissions in order to encourage investment in energy efficiency and further the city’s climate action goals.
Supported by a broad coalition of building industry and energy professionals, including the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) and Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP), the Ordinance requires all commercial buildings over 35,000 square feet and all residential buildings over 35 units to annually report whole-building energy and water use. It will cover approximately 1,600 buildings in Boston.
As a component of the city’s Climate Action Plan to meet Mayor Menino’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, this Ordinance will encourage building owners to participate in the city’s Renew Boston energy efficiency and alternative energy initiative and local utility energy efficiency programs, including a variety of incentives and rebates, and educate tenants on building performance.
Following the principal of “what gets measured gets managed,” Boston joins other major cities across the country that have adopted similar ordinances: Minneapolis and Philadelphia enacted building energy rating and disclosure policy in recent months, and Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, Austin and Washington, DC, have all had similar laws in effect for more than a year, with a high rate of building owner participation reported.
This Ordinance, as in these other cities, requires that buildings report their annual energy use, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions through EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager to the City of Boston Environment Department. The City will then make energy and water use per square foot, Energy Star ratings, greenhouse gas emissions, and other identifying and contextual information for individual buildings available to the public online.
The City of Boston’s Environment and Energy Services is working with local utilities to help develop a process that simplifies whole building data collection and reporting to ensure ease of compliance. If individual residential tenant data is unavailable to the building owner, the City of Boston will develop a proxy for building owners to use for their reporting.
Leading by example, the City of Boston will annually disclose its energy and water use for all of its facilities starting with 2012 building data, to be released in the coming weeks. Over the next four years, the Ordinance will be phased in to apply to nonresidential buildings greater than 35,000 square feet and residential buildings 35 units or more. Mayor Menino hopes to further inspire action with the launch of an upcoming sustainability movement called Greenovate Boston.
