Body shop owners in Boston may soon have to provide energy use data for benchmarking as part of the city's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency.
Mayor Thomas Menino has proposed an ordinance that would require commercial and residential buildings to use the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool to track energy use. The energy performance ratings produced through this effort would be made available online, and building owners who failed to report would face fines. Owners of buildings with lower scores would be required to conduct audits every five years to identify upgrades that could reduce energy consumption.
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If the measure passes, Boston will join seven other cities and two states in the U.S. that require benchmarking and disclosure of energy use in existing buildings. These policies, which are being phased in on a variety of schedules based on building size, will eventually cover roughly 4 billion square feet of floor space in major cities.
Why this focus on large, commercial buildings? Such buildings consume the bulk of energy in a given city (in Boston, that is estimated at some 70 to 80 percent), so measuring the efficiency of buildings and then trying to improve their scores could have a significant impact on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas.
According to Steven Schillinger of GRC-Pirk Management in Reno, Nev., who serves as the administrator for Energy Star Green Garage Challenge, benchmarking programs in many areas are tied to special tax credits for compliant buildings, and those that have made an effort to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. "And in many states and localities, you can't sell a building unless you have to have a rating on it," Schillinger says.
Body shops will be affected
Right now, most cities that have adopted benchmarking requirements have started with very large buildings (50,000 square feet or more), but the ordinances will expand over time to include smaller and smaller building, which will have a direct affect on many body shops. The benchmarking process involves measuring energy use (based on data from utility providers), and then comparing it to other buildings of the same size that are being used for similar purposes. Building owners are typically on the hook for making sure the benchmarking is completed, but they may require tenants to actually gather the data and work with utilities.
Washington, D.C., was one of the first cities to require benchmarking, and requires owners to use the Energy Star tool to disclose their energy use annually. Austin requires benchmarking for buildings over 10,000 square feet (starting in June 2014), along with mandatory energy audits for residential buildings. New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis also have similar requirements.
In California, the benchmarking mandate affects buildings of larger than 50,000 square feet right now, but will eventually cover any building over 5,000 square feet by January 2014. Washington State passed a similar measure in 2009. In almost all cases, the benchmarking data must be disclosed to potential buyers if the owner wants to sell the building.
The Green Garage Challenge (www.findgreengarage.com) is an EPA Small Business Partnership program for improving energy efficiency in the auto service and repair industry. Shop owners can use the online tools on the site to provide data and receive a rating based on energy usage and emissions. "They have a measurement tool to compare their performance with other facilities," Schillinger says. Green Garage also includes waste and performance hours in its calculations, along with chemical usage and disposal. The Green Garage service can be used to fulfill the requirements of the current benchmarking laws, since it is based on the Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool.
According to the most recent data, typical body shop energy efficiency ratings for new facilities range from 65 go 72 on a scale of 100, while a new facility with some energy efficiency improvements typically falls in the 73-79 range. An "energy efficient new facility" may be rated between 80 and 90.
Benchmarking can be beneficial to shop owners. If you're building is not particularly energy efficient, then taking steps to improve your score can save money by reducing utility usage. A study by Lawrence Berkeley Labs on the benefits of energy performance assessments found that existing buildings could lower energy costs by as much as 16 percent, with a 1.1 year payback.
Owners of older buildings may worry that, because of the age of the facility, they will wind up with a low rating that could affect their resale value, or result in costly efficiency upgrades down the line. But just because a building is old doesn't necessarily mean that it is inefficient. New York City's benchmarking program revealed that the most efficient public building in the city dated from 1933. The city's data also indicated that just 2 percent of buildings were responsible for 45 percent of the city's greenhouse gas emissions, allowing officials to take a more targeted approach to emissions reduction.
Shops that may be impacted by these ordinances should work with utility providers and keep copies of their utility bills so that the data is easily available to be input into the online tool, and have a plan in place to implement energy (and cost) saving measures like ensuring lights are turned out when they aren't necessary, and that bay doors are closed to reduce heating and cooling costs. A third-party energy audit would be a good idea for any shops interested in boosting their scores and then touting their "green" credentials in their advertising. (The Federal Trade Commission updated its rules for green marketing last year. You can find more information here: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/reporter/advertising/greenguides.shtml.)
Right now, receiving a poor rating doesn't carry any penalties, but Schillinger warns that as "time moves on, between now and 2020, I expect there will be penalties put in place for poor performers."
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