Report, Building Better Building Performance Standards

This 2022 comment from the Guarini Center on the Environment, Energy, and Land Use offers recommendations regarding the choice of metrics in Building Energy Performance Standards. Its recommendations reflect the findings of a large-scale study of the predicted impacts of New York City’s landmark BPS, Local Law 97 of 2019 (LL97), which caps the total GHG emissions of large buildings in New York City. A central takeaway from the study’s analysis of LL97 is that cities—and other levels of government— should be wary of following the lead of New York City and Boston in adopting BPSs that measure performance in terms of GHG emissions. The reason for this caution is that local governments and building owners have only limited control over emissions associated with electrical consumption as the electric grid decarbonizes. Therefore, standards set in this fashion may have unpredictable outcomes and compliance costs.