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Can Benchmarking and Disclosure Laws Provide Incentives for Energy Efficiency Improvements in Buildings?

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  • Palmer, Karen

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Walls, Margaret

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

Building energy use accounted for 38 percent of total US carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2012, and roughly half of those emissions were attributable to the commercial building sector. A new policy that has been adopted in 10 US cities and one US county is a requirement that commercial and sometimes also multifamily residential building owners disclose their annual energy use and benchmark it relative to other buildings. We discuss these nascent policies, preliminary analyses of the data that have been collected so far, and how to evaluate whether they are having an effect on energy use and CO2 emissions. Missing or imperfect information is a contributor to the energy efficiency gap, the finding that many low-cost options for improving energy efficiency fail to be adopted. These new laws may be an important step in closing the gap in the commercial and multifamily building sectors, but careful evaluation of the programs will be essential.

Suggested Citation

  • Palmer, Karen & Walls, Margaret, 2015. "Can Benchmarking and Disclosure Laws Provide Incentives for Energy Efficiency Improvements in Buildings?," RFF Working Paper Series dp-15-09, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-15-09
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    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-15-09.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Luming Shang & Sofia Dermisi & Youngjun Choe & Hyun Woo Lee & Yohan Min, 2023. "Assessing Office Building Marketability before and after the Implementation of Energy Benchmarking and Disclosure Policies—Lessons Learned from Major U.S. Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-23, May.
    2. O'Keeffe, Lucy & Palmer, Karen & Walls, Margaret & Hayes, Kristin, 2015. "Energy Benchmarking and Disclosure: Summary of a Workshop on City Experiences, Market Impacts, and Program Evaluation," RFF Working Paper Series dp-15-10, Resources for the Future.
    3. Papadopoulos, Sokratis & Bonczak, Bartosz & Kontokosta, Constantine E., 2018. "Pattern recognition in building energy performance over time using energy benchmarking data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 576-586.
    4. Francisco, Abigail & Taylor, John E., 2019. "Understanding citizen perspectives on open urban energy data through the development and testing of a community energy feedback system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    energy efficiency; commercial buildings; disclosure; benchmarking; energy use intensity; Energy Star; LEED;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

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