Municipal Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Targets: The Role of Building Energy Regulations and Laws
Publication: Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction
Volume 14, Issue 2
Abstract
Buildings are the single largest user of energy in the US and can account for 50%–75% of carbon emissions in large cities. Adopting effective regulations for encouraging more energy-efficient buildings is therefore paramount. Besides the voluntary programs, the regulatory bodies (e.g. municipalities) have different mandatory programs to motivate energy efficiency in new and existing buildings. While building energy codes and auditing are traditional law instruments, an increasing number of cities across the US have adopted building energy benchmarking laws in recent years. This study evaluates the building energy regulations and laws in seven US cities. In particular, it focuses on three major aspects of the building energy laws for each city: (1) scope and compliance, (2) implementation and enforcement, and (3) contribution to the emission reduction. The results show that although energy codes are necessary to establish minimum requirements for new buildings, adopting mandatory benchmarking and transparency laws can significantly reduce energy use. The study concludes with a comparison of adopted energy laws in selected cities and discusses the factors affecting the successful adoption of benchmarking policies such as compliance rate and training of building owners. The results of this study can raise the awareness of policymakers for implementing more effective building energy regulations.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
References
List of Statutes
Austin City Code: Title 6. Environmental Control and Conservation. Chapter 6-7. Energy Conservation. https://austinenergy.com/wcm/connect/c8814cf7-e1a4-4d6f-8257-88445444f40c/ECADChap6-7EnergyConservation.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=mNOa26F.
Chapter 47.190–Commercial and Multifamily Residential Building Rating and Disclosure. https://library.municode.com/mn/minneapolis/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_TIT3AIPOENPR_CH47ENAIPO_47.190COMUREBURADI.
City of Austin Energy Code. https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=255091.
City of St. Louis Ordinance 70474: Ordinance Establishing Building Energy Awareness. https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/internal-apps/legislative/upload/Ordinances/BOAPdf/BB205CSAA-wd7--Ord.70474.pdf.
Denver Office of Sustainability and Citywide Sustainability Policy Executive Order No. 123. https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/executiveorders/123-Sustainability-Policy.pdf.
Municipal Code of Chicago: Chapter 18-14. Building Energy Use Benchmarking. https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/progs/env/EnergyBenchmark/BenchmarkingOrdinance11SEP2013.pdf.
New York City Energy Conservation Code. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/buildings/codes/energy-conservation-code.page.
Philadelphia Energy Conservation Code. https://www.phila.gov/departments/department-of-licenses-and-inspections/resources/applicable-codes/.
Philadelphia Energy Conservation Code Adoption of 2018 IECC with Amendments. https://up.codes/viewer/philadelphia/iecc-2018.
2018 International Energy Conservation Code with Amendments, Ordinance 70799. https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/city-laws/ordinances/ordinance.cfm?ord=70799.
2020 Minnesota Energy Code with ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2016. https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/MNEC2020P1.
Works Cited
Abbasabadi, N., M. Ashayeri, R. Azari, B. Stephens, and M. Heidarinejad. 2019. “An integrated data-driven framework for urban energy use modeling (UEUM).” Appl. Energy 253 (Nov): 113550. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.113550.
ACEEE (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy). 2018. “Commercial and multifamily building energy benchmarking, transparency, and labeling in US Cities.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://aceee.org/sites/default/files/pdf/topic-benchmarking.pdf.
AECOM. 2017. “City of Chicago greenhouse gas inventory report.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/progs/env/GHG_Inventory/CityofChicago_2015_GHG_Emissions_Inventory_Report.pdf.
Annunziata, E., M. Frey, and F. Rizzi. 2013. “Towards nearly zero-energy buildings: The state-of-art of national regulations in Europe.” Energy 57 (Aug): 125–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2012.11.049.
Arjunan, P., K. Poolla, and C. Miller. 2020. “EnergyStar++: Towards more accurate and explanatory building energy benchmarking.” Appl. Energy 276 (Oct): 115413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115413.
Austin Energy. 2020. Energy conservation audit & disclosure ordinance. Austin, TX: Austin Energy.
Australian Property Institute. 2011. “Building better returns: A study of the financial performance of green office buildings in Australia.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.cbd.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-09/building_better_returns_research_report.pdf.
Building Policies for a Better World. n.d. “Austin summary.” Accessed December 14, 2021. https://tools.gbpn.org/databases-tools/bc-detail-pages/austin.
Burr, A. C., C. Keicher, and D. Leipziger. 2011. Building energy transparency: A framework for implementing US commercial energy rating and disclosure policy. Washington, DC: Institute for Market Transformation.
Chung, W. 2011. “Review of building energy-use performance benchmarking methodologies.” Appl. Energy 88 (5): 1470–1479. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.11.022.
City of Austin. 2021. “Multifamily audits and exemptions.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://data.austintexas.gov/Utilities-and-City-Services/Multifamily-Audits-and-Exemptions-for-2016/rbfa-hpyt.
City of Austin Open Data Portal. 2019. “2019 multifamily ECAD.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://data.austintexas.gov/Utilities-and-City-Services/2019-Multifamily-ECAD/feiy-7jhe.
City of Chicago. 2018. “Chicago energy benchmarking report.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/progs/env/EnergyBenchmark/2018_Chicago_Energy_BenchmarkingReport.pdf.
City of Chicago. 2021. “Energy conservation requirements.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/bldgs/supp_info/chicago-energy-conservation-code.html.
City of Minneapolis. 2017. “Energy benchmarking.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/media/content-assets/www2-documents/business/Energy-Benchmarking-Report-2018.pdf.
City of Minneapolis. 2018. “Energy benchmarking report.” Accessed December 14, 2021. https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/media/content-assets/www2-documents/business/Energy-Benchmarking-Report-2018.pdf.
City of Minneapolis. 2020. “Compliance standards for energy benchmarking in the City of Minneapolis.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/media/content-assets/www2-documents/government/Compliance-standards-for-energy-benchmarking-in-the-City-Minneapolis.pdf.
City of New York. 2009. “Local laws of the city of New York.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/buildings/local_laws/ll84of2009.pdf.
City of New York. 2017. “New York City’s energy and water use 2014 and 2015 report.” Accessed September 18, 2021. http://www.nyc.gov/html/gbee/downloads/pdf/UGC-Benchmarking-Report-101617-FINAL.pdf.
City of Philadelphia. 2019. “Philadelphia building energy benchmarking 2019 report.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.phila.gov/media/20191210091804/2019-Municipal-Energy-Benchmarking-Report.pdf.
City of St. Louis. 2018. “Annual benchmarking report.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.stlbenchmarking.com/SustainabilityReports.
Cohen, R., and B. Bordass. 2015. “Mandating transparency about building energy performance in use.” Build. Res. Inf. 43 (4): 534–552. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2015.1017416.
Denvergov.org. 2021. “Denver benchmarking ordinance.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.buildingrating.org/jurisdiction/Denver.
Ding, Y., and X. Liu. 2020. “A comparative analysis of data-driven methods in building energy benchmarking.” Energy Build. 209 (Feb): 109711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2019.109711.
DOE. 1995. Measuring energy efficiency in the United States’ economy: A beginning, Energy Consumption Series. Washington, DC: DOE.
DOE. 2018. “Greenhouse gas inventories.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://doee.dc.gov/node/18822.
DOE. 2019. “Compliance and enforcement basics.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.energycodes.gov/compliance/basics.
Drexel University. 2016. “Options for achieving deep reductions in carbon emissions in Philadelphia by 2050.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.phila.gov/media/20160502170712/Emissions-Reduction-Report-80-by-50_Jan-2016.pdf.
Energy Star. 2020. “Interactive maps for energy benchmarking data, programs, and policies.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/program-administrators/state-and-local-governments/see-federal-state-and-local-benchmarking-policies.
European Parliament. 2010. “Energy performance of buildings directive.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID=FZMjThLLzfxmmMCQGp2Y1s2d3TjwtD8QS3pqdkhXZbwqGwlgY9KN!2064651424?uri=CELEX:32010L0031.
Gao, X., and A. Malkawi. 2014. “A new methodology for building energy performance benchmarking: An approach based on intelligent clustering algorithm.” Energy Build. 84 (Dec): 607–616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2014.08.030.
IMT (Institute for Market Transformation). 2021. “Map: US City, County, and state policies for existing buildings: Benchmarking, transparency and beyond.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.imt.org/resources/map-u-s-building-benchmarking-policies/.
Jain, R. K., T. Damoulas, and C. E. Kontokosta. 2014. “Towards data-driven energy consumption forecasting of multi-family residential buildings: Feature selection via the lasso.” In Proc., Int. Conf. on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering, 1675–1682. Reston, VA: ASCE.
Kahre, N. 2020. “Energy code changes in Denver.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://theenergylogic.com/blog/energy-code-changes-in-denver-what-you-need-to-know/.
Kapousouz, E., A. Seyrfar, S. Derrible, and H. Ataei. 2021. “A clustering analysis of energy and water consumption in US states from 1985 to 2015.” In Data science applied to sustainability analysis, edited by P. Balaprakash and J. Dunn. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
Li, Z., Y. Han, and P. Xu. 2014. “Methods for benchmarking building energy consumption against its past or intended performance: An overview.” Appl. Energy 124 (Jul): 325–334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.03.020.
Lowi, T. J. 1972. “Four systems of policy, politics, and choice.” Public Admin. Rev. 32 (4): 298–310. https://doi.org/10.2307/974990.
Mattoni, B., C. Guattari, L. Evangelisti, F. Bisegna, P. Gori, and F. Asdrubali. 2018. “Critical review and methodological approach to evaluate the differences among international green building rating tools.” Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev. 82 (Feb): 950–960. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.09.105.
New York City Office of Sustainability. 2017. “Data disclosure & reports.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www1.nyc.gov/html/gbee/html/plan/ll84_scores.shtml.
NYC Buildings. 2020. “Benchmarking.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/buildings/business/benchmarking.page.
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. 2017. “The impact of building energy codes.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.energycodes.gov/about/results.
Papadopoulos, S., B. Bonczak, and C. E. Kontokosta. 2018. “Pattern recognition in building energy performance over time using energy benchmarking data.” Appl. Energy 221 (Jul): 576–586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.03.079.
Papadopoulos, S., and C. E. Kontokosta. 2019. “Grading buildings on energy performance using city benchmarking data.” Appl. Energy 233 (Jan): 244–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.10.053.
Pérez-Lombard, L., J. Ortiz, R. González, and I. R. Maestre. 2009. “A review of benchmarking, rating and labelling concepts within the framework of building energy certification schemes.” Energy Build. 41 (3): 272–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2008.10.004.
Rihoux, B., and H. Grimm. 2006. Innovative comparative methods for policy analysis: Beyond the quantitative-qualitative divide. New York: Springer.
Robinson, C., B. Dilkina, J. Hubbs, W. Zhang, S. Guhathakurta, M. A. Brown, and R. M. Pendyala. 2017. “Machine learning approaches for estimating commercial building energy consumption.” Appl. Energy 208 (Dec): 889–904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.09.060.
Seyrfar, A., and H. Ataei. 2021. “Evaluating computational methodologies for grading buildings on energy performance using machine learning techniques.” In Computing in civil engineering 2021. Reston, VA: ASCE.
Seyrfar, A., H. Ataei, and S. Derrible. 2020. “A review of building energy benchmarking policies across the US cities.” In Proc., Applied Energy Symp.: MIT A+B, United States, 2020. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Seyrfar, A., H. Ataei, A. Movahedi, and S. Derrible. 2021. “Data-driven approach for evaluating the energy efficiency in multifamily residential buildings.” Pract. Period. Struct. Des. Constr. 26 (2): 4020074. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)SC.1943-5576.0000555.
Tereci, A., S. T. E. Ozkan, and U. Eicker. 2013. “Energy benchmarking for residential buildings.” Energy Build. 60 (May): 92–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2012.12.004.
UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme). 2009. Buildings and climate change: Summary for decision-makers, 1–62. Paris: UNEP.
US Energy Information Administration. 2019. “Today in energy.” Accessed September 18, 2021. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual%0A/index.php.
World Bank. 2019. “Implemention Completion and Results report.” Accessed September 18, 2021. http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/998261563296152552/pdf/China-Green-Energy-for-Low-carbon-City-in-Shanghai-Project.pdf.
Zepeda-Gil, C., and S. Natarajan. 2020. “A review of ‘green building’ regulations, laws, and standards in Latin America.” Buildings 10 (10): 188. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings10100188.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 1, 2021
Accepted: Nov 10, 2021
Published online: Jan 3, 2022
Published in print: May 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Jun 3, 2022
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
Cited by
- Yi Lu, Gayani Karunasena, Chunlu Liu, Conceptual Cross-Theoretical Assessment Model for Practitioners’ Compliance Behavior with Building Energy Codes, Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction, 10.1061/JLADAH.LADR-1019, 16, 1, (2024).
- Yi Lu, Gayani Karunasena, Chunlu Liu, A Systematic Literature Review of Non-Compliance with Low-Carbon Building Regulations, Energies, 10.3390/en15249266, 15, 24, (9266), (2022).
- Hevar Palani, Aslihan Karatas, Holistic approach for reducing occupants’ energy consumption in hotel buildings, Journal of Cleaner Production, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132679, 365, (132679), (2022).