Goal
K
Engage with commercial and industrial sectors to promote energy savings and efficiency, reducing energy use in large commercial buildings by 20%.
The Commercial and Industrial sectors represent the greatest sources of emissions in the City, but also the greatest opportunities for energy reduction. The City has a Building Energy Awareness Ordinance (benchmarking) that requires buildings over 50,000 square feet to track and report their energy use to the City. Those same buildings must also meet the Building Energy Performance Standard (BEPS), which sets energy use targets by building type. There is an opportunity to expand this work to more building types and smaller buildings and to provide technical assistance to encourage upgrades related to their benchmarking reports.
Strategy
Expand and enhance the City’s benchmarking ordinance to cover buildings of 25,000 square feet by 2031, and 10,000 square feet by 2036, in concert with enhanced building performance implementation and technical assistance.
Expected Outcomes
Commercial businesses are routinely reporting their energy use and upgrading their buildings.
Industrial businesses are engaged with the City, working towards reducing their energy use.
Reduced greenhouse gas emissions based on energy use in the commercial and industrial sectors.
How will we achieve this?
Our Actions
K.1
Connect existing City benchmarking and performance standard efforts with technical assistance resources, partnering with other organizations already serving these businesses, to address energy and water use for owners of buildings over 50,000 square feet.
K.2
Incorporate the industrial sector and data centers/communication infrastructure into the benchmarking and BEPS ordinance and other key energy policies.
K.3
Focus engagement and energy reduction efforts on community-serving institutions, such as schools or institutions in underserved communities, to create healthier community spaces. Work with existing partners when possible.
K.4
Establish a range of City-led incentives (i.e., tax credits, revolving loan fund) to promote retro-commissioning and deep retrofits for commercial and industrial buildings in conjunction with benchmarking and BEPS.
K.5
Continue to work closely with institutional organizations and industrial and commercial businesses of all sizes to drive their participation and actions to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy development.
Case Studies
Learn more about the sustainability practices or principles mentioned in the actions above.
