A wave of cities are committed to adopting building performance standards in 2026, analyses show. That should drive an urgency for building operators to take action in reducing energy use and emissions at their facilities, building energy specialists say.
A number of large cities have passed building performance standards, or BPS, like Local Law 97 in New York City and BERDO in Boston. These standards require progressive emissions reduction with the goal of net-zero by 2050. Many other jurisdictions are requiring benchmarking as a first step to their own performance standards. Other jurisdictions, including those participating in the National Building Performance Standard Coalition, are expected to pass requirements in the year ahead.
Even if a jurisdiction isn’t expected to adopt BPS in the near term, the energy and emission assessments that these standards typically require can provide significant value to building operations, according to Craig Walter, principal energy advisor at ENGIE Impact, a firm that partners with organizations to accelerate building decarbonization efforts.
“You’ve had those markets like New York City that have been around for awhile,” Walter said in an interview. “Until things like that become more real [with penalties for noncompliance], we have quite a few clients in the wait-and-see mode.”
Even if standards aren’t required or penalties aren’t assessed, plenty of facility managers see the writing on the wall and want to be prepared, Walter said. Others want to take advantage of programs for early adopters, where they’re available, he said. And there are others who might not know where they stand should targets be required and want to take the first step to see how close they are to benchmarks so they can plan accordingly, he said.
“They're the ones that realize that if I need to do something, I probably need to have a year-and-a-half to two-year runway to get stuff put through [capital expenditure] planning and all those types of things,” Walter said.
The Institute for Market Transformation coordinates the National Building Performance Standard Coalition, an effort with participants from 46 cities, counties and states that set a goal of advancing legislation or regulation to design and implement programs and policies for building performance standards.
Building operators can get an idea of what they would be facing in three BPS hot spots, Walter wrote in a recent blog post: the states of Colorado, Maryland and Washington. All have implemented statewide programs that require significant energy or carbon reductions by 2030 and beyond for certain building types and sizes.
“Now is the time to determine where in your portfolio you need to comply, map your deadlines, understand your benchmarking requirements, build and update your roadmap, and determine your next steps,” Walter wrote.
Even if a facility’s jurisdiction doesn’t have building performance standards or similar legislation on its near-term agenda, organizations and portfolio operators would benefit by looking at the standards as an opportunity, according to Walter.
“Improving your energy use is a good thing, so take advantage of the incentives early on,” he said. “What may be a five-year opportunity is now a two-year opportunity. You’re gonna be better if you start early, especially if you need to implement some [improvements], as opposed to delaying it and then being forced in a situation where what was a three-year payback a year or two ago, now that everyone’s in the market needing stuff, now that’s a four- or five-year payback.”
“A lot of these programs that have already started have early adopter incentives,” he said. “If you come into compliance a year in advance, there’s some good opportunities. And if you have a site where you know you’re going to need to improve performance anyways, why not take advantage of it?”
