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

    Impact:

  • Target Beneficiaries:
    Property owners, Residents
  • Phase of Impact:
    Risk reduction and mitigation
  • Metrics:
    Energy use by area, building, and use

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

    Benefits:

  • Cost-Benefit:
    Low
  • Public Good:
    N/A
  • GHG Reduction:
    Medium
  • Co-benefits (Climate/Environmental):
    Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
  • Co-benefits (Social):
    N/A