Although commercial and institutional buildings vary greatly from one to another in size, use, and type of construction, there are general recommendations for creating energy-efficient commercial buildings in a hot and humid climate.

This document is meant as an introductory brief for jurisdictions working on BPS to develop strategies, policies, and programs that address housing affordability and counteract displacement in that context. There is no one-size-fits all solution to addressing the myriad of issues related to housing affordability across jurisdictions, but this document seeks to describe the landscape of considerations and propose vetted paths forward.

Building performance standards are a promising approach aiming to achieve a highly effective, long-term, technology-neutral method to improve building performance. This brief explores the power and potential of performance mandates to make transformational changes in building performance, and the relationship between green buildings and BPS.

This document from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) establishes a standard method for monitoring and reporting on the energy performance of commercial buildings.

Opportunities to Advance Demand This document is written to guide state and local governments that are developing a building performance standard in thinking through how it might encourage demand flexibility.

The costs of building energy improvement could be prohibitive for many affordable multifamily property owners and managers, but exempting them misses an opportunity to decarbonize buildings and improve energy equity for residents. This paper identifies potential solutions for improved energy performance of affordable housing.

Electrification is a key component of a comprehensive city decarbonization strategy. How can cities use building performance standards to advance electrification?

This document examines the missing link between energy codes and building performance standards and presents actions that cities can take to make progress towards a building lifecycle approach to regulation.

Preparing for Building Policy: This resource aims to enhance city personnel perspectives on how the real estate industry functions—including how different market actors work together throughout the various phases of a building’s lifecycle—and foster more meaningful conversations with stakeholders.

For cities exploring and implementing building performance standards, a high-performance building hub provides critical guidance, technical assistance, or access to available incentives to building owners, designers, contractors, and operators.

This document provides a high-level overview of the Institute for Market Transformation’s (IMT) model ordinance for a building performance standard (BPS).