If you own or operate a building larger than 25,000 square feet in NYC, you should utilize buildee in order to comply with 40x30 & 80x50 goals as well as newly mandated emissions limits.
What You Need to Know
New York's City Council has passed a landmark legislation that will set strict limits on the carbon emissions of large buildings in the city. Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to sign this legislation into law, with the new mandates going into effect in late 2019.
This new legislation, the Climate Mobilization Act, sets New York City buildings on a path to meet City and State goals to reduce total carbon emissions 80% by 2050. The new law will require buildings larger than 25,000 square feet to meet these new greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets or face significant fines. All premises over the 25,000 square feet minimum, of which there are 50,000 in the city, will be required to cur overall emissions by 40% or face significant annual fines.
Buildings over 25,000 square feet, of which there are over 28,000 in NYC, will be required to cut climate emissions 40% by 2030. The new law will also require green roofs on certain large buildings and establishes requirements for smaller buildings to do the same. As New York City Council Member Costa Constantinides said, "the Climate Mobilization Act is a down payment on the future of New York City — one that ensures we lead the way in the ever-growing fight against climate change."
Starting in 2022 there will be new carbon emission limits for buildings over 25,00 square feet, which will vary by occupancy groups. New emissions limits on large buildings will have a profound effect on New York City's climate harming impact as a recent study found that buildings account for 67% of the city's emissions.
Table originally published by building energy exchange
How buildee Can Help You Comply
buildee is already available to facilitate compliance with the requirements of the Climate Mobilization Act and can be leveraged to reduce energy use and drive down building emissions to meet mandated emissions limits. By identifying and prioritizing energy efficient retrofit projects, buildee can not only help drive down emissions for compliance, but also add value to your building.
Very significant fines will be levied for non-compliance. The Guardian reports that some of the biggest buildings in New York will face annual fines of up to $850,000 if no improvements are made to their energy efficiency.
Rather than pay significant fines for not reducing emissions, property owners should be investing that money into energy efficient retrofit projects that will reduce energy use and add value to their building. buildee can be utilized to uncover these projects and provide metrics in order to prioritize them.
buildee can be utilized to support:
- GHG emission analysis and tracking
- Retrofit project analysis to reduce GHG emissions for 2022 compliance and beyond
- NYC LL84 benchmarking requirements through an Energy Star Portfolio Manager integration
- NYC LL87 compliance through on-site assessments. For any building type, size, and vintage
- Reporting tools which can rapidly generate reports for compliance and to drive projects
buildee is a cloud-based and mobile software platform that combines credible engineering intelligence with stakeholder collaboration tools to act on cost-effective retrofit investments and track the performance of those investments through the building lifecycle.
In addition, buildee is already being used to assist in Local Law 84 and Local Law 87 compliance in NYC. buildee connects to Energy Star Portfolio Manager, the City's required reporting mechanism for LL84 & LL87, and all compliance reporting can be easily accomplished on the platform.
