A report outlining what an energy audit is and how they can be used to improve the performance of a building.

U.S. Department of Energy webpage on strategic energy management and retro-commissioning of commercial buildings

State and local governments seeking to fund their Building Performance Standards programming and support building owners and operators with compliance need to understand the funding opportunities available to support this effort. The DOE has a list of funding streams to help with a variety of tasks related to BPS, from technical assistance to building upgrades themselves.

This needs assessment provides the industry needs to establish and implement the BPS from the market perspective.

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.

This tool assesses the energy efficiency of a building’s physical systems and produces an Energy Asset Score report.

ComStock and ResStock are building stock-level diagnostic tools. States, municipalities, utilities and manufacturers can use them to identify high-impact improvements and make better program decisions.

This is an online portal which cities can use to collect standardized information about a building’s physical systems and recommended upgrades. Auditors use the mobile-friendly interface to submit data.

This tool is a central database for city BPS data that merges information from Portfolio Manager, Audit Template, and other city datasets in one place.

The BETTER tool identifies cost-saving energy and emissions reductions in buildings and portfolios without site visits or complex modeling.

To support policymakers and interested professionals in this process, ASHRAE convened a BPS Working Group under its Task Force on Building Decarbonization (TFBD) that is working to produce a Technical Resource Guide that guides jurisdictions through the target-setting process and outlines the available methodology options. The guide also provides additional background in metric selection.

The U.S. DOE Better Buildings has put together a list of resources to help navigate tools and procedures for tracking, reporting, and compliance with benchmarking and building performance standards.