by Brianna Crandall — August 17, 2012—Among his latest efforts to improve the quality of life for New York City’s residents, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg released on August 3 the first benchmarking report analyzing a year of energy and water use for the City’s largest buildings. The mayor’s office says this information is the first step in increasing knowledge about buildings’ energy use and shows property owners where they may have opportunities to save energy and money by making their buildings more efficient. The report is required under Local Law 84 of 2009, which mandates that all privately owned properties with individual buildings over 50,000 square feet or multiple buildings with a combined square footage over 100,000 square feet annually measure and report their energy and water use.
While New York City’s buildings are found to be generally less energy intensive than the national average, there is a significant opportunity to improve the energy performance of large buildings, which is essential to achieving the City’s greenhouse gas reduction goal established in Mayor Bloomberg’s comprehensive sustainability plan, PlaNYC. The benchmarking report shows that energy use varies greatly between property types, uses, and locations, with some properties using three to five times more energy per square foot than buildings with similar uses. Though many factors are at play, newer office buildings in New York City reportedly tend to use more energy per square foot than older ones.
“Buildings account for 75 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in New York City, yet many property owners and managers do not know they can be a part of the solution and save money by making their buildings more energy efficient,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “This benchmarking report will help us understand where we can act most quickly to significantly reduce GHG emissions and achieve our PlaNYC goals.”
The report documents the current state of energy consumption and performance in large buildings in New York City. Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool, nearly 1.8 billion square feet of built space was benchmarked. This is the largest collection of benchmarking data gathered for a single jurisdiction and will help identify opportunities to gain efficiencies. Local Law 84 is part of the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, PlaNYC’s signature effort to increase energy efficiency in large buildings, which are responsible for almost half of the city’s total greenhouse gas emissions. The GGBP is projected to reduce citywide greenhouse gas emissions by nearly five percent, have a net savings of $7 billion, and create roughly 17,800 construction-related jobs by 2030.
Improving the energy efficiency of large, existing buildings is key to achieving the City’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 30 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, says the City. The emphasis on large existing buildings is driven by three facts. First, 75 percent of GHG emissions in New York City come from energy used in buildings. This is almost double the proportion in the United States as a whole. Second, almost half of New York City’s GHG emissions are generated by the city’s largest buildings, which constitute only two percent of the city’s properties but half of the built space in the city. Third, 85 percent of the buildings that will exist in 2030 are already built.
