Cindy Jacobs

Over a dozen local and state governments in the US have put in place Building Performance Standards (BPS) for commercial and multifamily buildings, and more than 30 additional jurisdictions are in the process of developing similar laws. These laws limit the amount of energy that buildings can use or the emissions that they can generate, and those out of compliance often will face significant fines. All of the BPS established to date require building owners to track and report their performance using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® benchmarking tool. Portfolio Manager has been the industry standard benchmarking tool for commercial and multifamily buildings for many years, with more than 320,000 buildings using it annually. Recently, owners have expressed to EPA the desire to use Portfolio Manager more robustly for BPS compliance. Using funding made available through the Inflation Reduction Act, EPA now has the ability to implement significant enhancements in Portfolio Manager, and we are prioritizing updates to support BPS implementation and compliance to assist both building owners and policymakers. In this presentation, EPA will share details on some of the exciting enhancements that we’ll be implementing in the coming years to aid building owners in tracking their compliance with the myriad requirements of different BPS, as well as planning for improvements in their buildings to ensure they remain in compliance over the life of these BPS.