Policy Solution
Building energy benchmarking
Mandate
Overview:
Summary: Benchmarking is a tool that allows municipalities to track progress on building energy performance over time as well as make comparisons to surrounding and similar buildings.
Implementation: Conduct regular energy efficiency audits on buildings and assess overall performance in the geography.
Considerations for Use: Partnerships with utility providers can support data collection. Municipalities typically target larger buildings for reporting requirements.
- Policy Levers:
MandateMandates are government regulations that require stakeholders to meet standards through building codes, ordinances, zoning policies, or other regulatory tools. - Trigger Points:
No-regrets actions (low cost/low effort but substantial benefit)Interventions that are relatively low-cost and low effort (in terms of requisite dependencies) but have substantial environmental and/or social benefits. - Intervention Type:
Buildings and Built Form - Sectors:
Buildings, Public Works
- Target Beneficiaries:
Property owners, Residents - Phase of Impact:
Risk reduction and mitigation - Metrics:
Energy use by area, building, and use
Impact:
- Vancouver Energy Audit (UNEP, Pg 131)
- Austin Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure Ordinance
- Hong Kong's Energy Audit code
Case Studies:
Implementation:
- Intervention Scale:
City - Authority and Governance:
City government - Implementation Timeline:
Medium-term (3-9 Years) - Implementation Stakeholders:
City government, Industry, Private developers, Property owners and managers - Funding Sources:
Public investment - Capacity to Act:
High, Medium
- Cost-Benefit:
Low - Public Good:
N/A - GHG Reduction:
Medium - Co-benefits (Climate/Environmental):
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions - Co-benefits (Social):
N/A