Spotlight: New York City

On Earth Day 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, a six-point strategy to increase the energy efficiency of New York City's existing building stock. Unprecedented in many respects, the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan was hailed as one of the nation's most ambitious efforts to reduce energy waste in buildings by city officials, environmental groups and elected officials including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Senators Edward Markey and John Kerry. The New York City Council voted overwhelmingly to pass the legislation on Dec. 9, 2009, days before Mayor Bloomberg traveled to global climate talks in Copenhagen.
 
The Greener, Greater Buildings Plan is comprised of four energy efficiency bills requiring the benchmarking and public disclosure of building energy performance and water consumption; periodic energy audits and building "tune-ups" known as retro commissioning; lighting upgrades; the sub metering of large tenant spaces; and improvements to the city’s building energy code. The package also includes new government initiatives on green workforce development and retrofit financing. It was enacted as part of the Mayor's PlaNYC initiative to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030. It is projected to trim New York City's emissions by nearly 5 percent, the largest projected reduction from any PlaNYC program.
 
Roughly 80 percent of New York City's carbon footprint comes from buildings' operations, and 85 percent of existing buildings today will still be in use by the year 2030. According to city estimates, the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan will create more than 10,000 jobs in the building and construction sectors, and save consumers $700 million each year in energy costs.

 
Rating and Disclosing Building Energy Performance in New York City

The rating and disclosure provision of the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan requires annual ENERGY STAR benchmarking and public disclosure for city buildings and large commercial and multifamily buildings. Benchmarking information will be posted to a public, online database administered by the city that displays a building's energy utilization intensity (EUI), ENERGY STAR rating and water use for multiple years.

The provision will affect more than 20,000 buildings in the city accounting for roughly 2.5 billion square feet, which is about half of the total floor space of the city’s building stock.

City buildings were benchmarked in 2010 and will disclose in 2011, while private buildings will begin benchmarking in 2011 and disclose in 2012 (multifamily buildings will disclose in 2013.) Utilities are encouraged to automatically upload utility bills into ENERGY STAR.

Resources:

Greener, Greater Buildings Plan Web Site

NYC Proposed Rule on Benchmarking | Feb 14, 2011 
Int. No. 476-A (rating and disclosure bill)
New York City Mayor's Office Press Release | Dec. 9, 2009
New York City Council Press Release | Dec. 9, 2009
IMT Press Release | Dec. 9, 2009
Mayor Bloomberg Radio Address Transcript | 1010 WINS News Radio, Dec. 13, 2009
PlaNYC website
The Process Behind PlaNYC | ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability
USA and the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, City of New York