an essential reference guide developed from the real-world experience of cities at the forefront of advanced building policy. It breaks down both the basics and the intricacies of BPS for existing buildings and how to engage community throughout the process, from establishing goals to implementing policy.
While performance elements tell employees what they have to do, the standards tell them how well they have to do it. The first article in this series defined and reviewed the characteristics of critical, non-critical, and additional performance elements. This article reviews the principles of writing good standards that can be used effectively to appraise employee performance of those elements.
As leading cities and states seek to meet their aggressive climate, energy, and decarbonization goals, they are turning increasingly to mandatory policies that require improved energy and emissions performance across their existing building stock. The most comprehensive of these policies is the BPS, in which performance thresholds are set that building owners must meet at a specified time or when a triggering event occurs. A BPS can address a range of emissions, energy and grid-related goals. This paper examines technical approaches used to set the key metrics for both buildings and fuels in performance standard legislation.