Boston now requires building owners to disclose annual energy and water use and greenhouse gas emissions and the City will make that data public. The ordinance passed in 2013 applies to 1050 large buildings in 2014 with more buildings subject to the rules every year.
An Energy Star website Portfolio Manager simplifies the owners’ task of reporting. Utilities agreed to provide building level data quieting earlier objections about the difficulty of obtaining data from separately metered tenants. Boston even considered having the utilities rather than the building owners submit the annual data but decided having building owners touching their usage data would assist the effort to identify and implement energy saving efficiency measures.
The reporting will be phased in over four years to apply to more and more buildings in service of Boston’s Climate Action Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020.