Way to go Philadelphia!

Add Philadelphia to the growing number of jurisdictions that have adopted laws requiring rating and disclosure of building energy performance. The Philadelphia City Council on Thursday voted unanimously to approve a new ordinance requiring energy benchmarking of large commercial buildings in the city. Thanks to the leadership of Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager will now be used by owners of buildings of greater than 50,000 square feet to benchmark their energy performance. The point of the Philadelphia ordinance - as well as similar measures in place in New York City, Washington, Austin, TX, San Francisco and Seattle, among others - is to provide prospective buyers and tenants with comparative information regarding building energy use to allow them to make more informed real estate decisions. The new Philadelphia ordinance goes into effect June 1, 2013, and carries penalties for failing to comply of $300 for the first 30 days and $100 a day thereafter. The truth of the matter, though, is that a great many progressive property managers and real estate advisers are very supportive of the concept of building rating and disclosure, as was in evidence last week when NEEP hosted a day-long workshop on "Making the Grade - Building Energy Rating in the Northeast" as part of our annual Northeast Energy Efficiency Summit. As Nick Stolatis, Senior Director of Global Sustainability and Enterprise Initiatives for TIAA-CREF noted, energy performance benchmarking "allows asset managers to see the rise in asset value based on avoided energy costs," citing his fund's benchmarking of its entire office, multi-family and retail space portfolio, which exceeds 125 million square feet. Citing New York as an example, he noted that when the city law was rolled out, TIAA-CREF already had benchmarking in place for its buildings, which not only gave them "a market advantage," but "made tenant cost of occupancy lower." Shortly preceding the NEEP workshop was news from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino that the city plans to unveil its own energy rating and disclosure ordinance sometime later this year. We applaud Mayor Menino for his leadership on this issue, and looking forward to working with his office and the City Council as it considers its measures. Finally, check back to the NEEP website in the coming days for more recaps and presentations from our successful workshop in Stamford last week.