More than 50 US cities now set enforceable energy or emissions limits on commercial buildings, with financial penalties for exceeding them. Most owners find out what they owe after the deadline, not before. We tell you where your building stands while there is still time to act.
Building performance standards set a cap on how much energy your building may use, or how much carbon it may emit, per square foot. Buildings above the cap pay. The caps tighten in stages — most cities step them down again in 2030 — so a building that passes today can fail later without changing anything at all.
The penalties are not nominal. At $10 per square foot, a 100,000 sq ft building faces a seven-figure exposure.
| City | Applies to buildings over | Penalty |
|---|---|---|
| Washington, DC | 10,000 sq ft | $10 / sq ft |
| Seattle | 20,000 sq ft | $10 / sq ft |
| New York City | 25,000 sq ft | $268 / ton CO2e |
| Boston | 20,000 sq ft | $234 / ton CO2e |
| Denver | 25,000 sq ft | $0.30 / kBtu over |
| Cambridge, MA | 25,000 sq ft | $300 / day |
| Philadelphia | 50,000 sq ft | $300 / day |
| San Francisco | 10,000 sq ft | $100 / day |
Thresholds and penalty rates as published by each jurisdiction. Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, Montgomery County, Ann Arbor, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Atlanta and others operate comparable programs.
Energy is one of the biggest controllable costs in these buildings, and the one most often left alone. A full-service hotel spends roughly $2,200 per room per year on energy — about 6% of total operating costs.
Owner-operated properties where every kilowatt-hour hits your own P&L, and guest comfort limits how far you can cut.
Round-the-clock operation, strict ventilation requirements, and some of the highest energy intensity of any building type.
Large conditioned common areas, long operating hours, and tenant loads that are difficult to see from a single meter.
Owner-occupied offices, campuses, warehouses and light industrial facilities with aging mechanical plant.
A preliminary building energy and compliance assessment, prepared from your building's own filed data and the standards that apply where it sits.
Three steps. No site visit required to get started.
Address, approximate size and building type. That is enough for us to identify which standards apply and pull the public performance record.
Your building is measured against its jurisdiction's limits, current and future, and benchmarked against comparable properties.
A written assessment delivered by email, with your exposure figures, benchmark position and the measures worth investigating first.
One building, one flat fee. No subscription, no commitment beyond the report.
per building, one-time
Portfolio pricing available for five or more buildings.
Where a building needs more than an assessment, our engineering division takes it the rest of the way. We prepare and certify the reports jurisdictions require, and we carry the work through to the measures that actually close the gap.
Certified reports and engineering engagements are quoted per building, based on its size, systems and the jurisdiction it sits in. Tell us about the property and we will come back with scope and a figure.
Request a quoteTell us the building and we will come back to you with what applies to it and what the assessment will show. No obligation.