by Gideon Fink Shapiro

How do you . . . develop a dependable database of energy and zero-carbon performance?

Summary: Once overshadowed by the promise of zero-carbon new buildings, the less glamorous work of retrofitting existing buildings for increased efficiency is quickly gaining momentum. Increasingly widespread benchmarking and disclosure standards are making energy performance an important new metric across the industry.

NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and leaders of building trades and environmental groups introduce the "Greener Greater Buildings Plan" on April 22.

On April 22, the 39th annual Earth Day, environmental and building groups joined the mayors of New York and Seattle to introduce new programs designed to reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions of their respective cities’ building stock. The Seattle program relies on a set of market incentives to encourage owners to measure and upgrade their building's energy performance. The more stringent New York legislation would pair market incentives with efficiency requirements for all commercial, residential, and government buildings. Both programs use federal stimulus funds to provide low-interest financing for building upgrades.

These two new programs build on earlier benchmarking laws in California (2007) and Washington, DC (2008). Austin, Chicago, Berkeley, and Portland, Ore. are not far behind. Benchmarking is the practice of evaluating buildings' energy efficiency performance on a standard scale in order to compare them. Similar to how a car's estimated fuel economy helps measure its worth, a building's benchmark efficiency score helps determine its market value to owners, tenants, and prospective buyers.

The Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) has been a staunch advocate and consultant for developing benchmarking policies. Executive Director Cliff Majersik (photoo left) views benchmarking as a means to re-optimize the market toward green building, and hence slow climate change. Once owners are made aware of their building's energy score, he says, "there's low-hanging fruit, investment opportunities with low risk and high reward that increase performance." Thus private and public interests begin to dovetail. The Energy Star rating developed by the Environmental Protection Agency is now the most common benchmarking system for buildings.

The energy consumed by New York's one million buildings accounts for a whopping 80 percent of the city's carbon emissions, according to Rohit Aggarwala, director of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. The agency estimates that 85 percent of the city's buildings in 2030 are already standing today. In addition to requiring benchmarking for all existing and new city buildings, the "Greener, Greater Buildings Plan" would require all renovations to be green renovations, meeting guidelines of the International Energy Conservation Code regardless of the size or scope of work. Formerly, many renovations were exempt from the code if they composed less than half of a building.

The plan would also require existing buildings over 50,000 square feet to conduct energy audits and efficiency upgrades at least once every decade. Sensitive to financial as well as environmental interests, only those retrofits that would pay for themselves within five years through energy savings would be required, such as insulating pipes, replacing inefficient lighting, and installing low-flow fixtures.

This systematic, ongoing improvement of existing buildings is the boldest and most original aspect of the six-point plan, says Aggarwala. A job training program and $16 million loan fund would help ensure that the required work can be implemented by skilled technicians and paid for by owners. If implemented, the plan is predicted to reduce the city's total carbon footprint by 5 percent—the equivalent of eliminating all carbon emissions from a city the size of Oakland.

In Seattle, 20 percent of carbon emissions come from residential and commercial buildings, while around 60 percent comes from transportation. Beginning next year, Seattle will require commercial buildings larger than 50,000 square feet and multifamily buildings with more than 20 units to measure and disclose their energy use. Improvements are optional. "We're trying to do a lot by mandating information and providing incentives for the upgrades that would follow in hopes that the market would respond to more information," says Amanda Eichel, climate protection advisor in the Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Seattle's pilot program makes it easier for individual homeowners to improve their home's efficiency. The city convinced the energy utilities to offer 5,000 home energy audits for $95 instead of the usual $600, in hopes that the savings by both the company and homeowner will ultimately exceed the cost of the audit. Improvements following the audit are not mandatory, but residents can choose to take advantage of low-interest loans (as low as 2 percent rates for low-income households) which they don't have to repay until they sell the house. Eichel says the city will have enough data to assess the residential program in 2011, and the benchmarking program by 2012.

Poster for the new Seattle energy efficiency program, in which residents can receive energy audits at a steep discount, and then borrow money at low interest rates to make efficiency improvements.

Programs for eco-effective renovations and retrofits will help stimulate the economy, advocates predict. Numerous construction unions have endorsed the New York plan, in part because of the estimated 19,000 construction jobs it will supposedly create. Whether it will bring more business to architects remains to be seen, since many of the building upgrades can be accomplished without an architect's help. But what is good for the building industry is generally good for architecture. "You want to be creative" says Paul Katz, FAIA, a partner at KPF, "The easiest way to stimulate the construction industry is through renovation. And, of course, renovation and reuse can be sustainable."

One of the main obstacles the industry must overcome is the conundrum of split priorities. When the interests of the designer, the building owner, and the tenant do not align, the result is inefficient buildings, says Majersik, because "no one thinks they'll get paid for building efficiently." Another challenge is accurately projecting energy savings in a volatile market. In New York, passage of the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan will depend partially on support from building owners who are wary of promises that upgrades will pay for themselves within five years. The city council could vote on the plan as early as late summer or fall.

Policy, practice, and technology take turns leading the charge toward more sustainable cities. Just a week after New York unveiled its carbon-reduction plan, the Lightfair International trade show presented an overwhelming variety of LED bulbs and fixtures, many of which will find their way into the next generation of renovations. In many cases, it will be the architects' job to decide how and which new technology is implemented, and how policy goals are met in practice.