Building Performance Standards
Resource Libarary

Explore our curated collection of Builiding Performance Standards Resources to help policy makers create meaningful standards and building owners effectively understand and implement them.

White Paper on Understanding and Choosing Metrics for Building Performance Standards and Zero-Carbon Recognition

This white paper provides a framework and supporting analysis to help policymakers and commercial and multifamily building stakeholders understand the key differences among performance metrics and choose those best suited to building performance standard policies. The paper also proposes a complementary zero-carbon building recognition.

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Resources for the Future

Building Performance Standards: Lessons from Carbon Policy

This report assesses the various tradeoffs and challenges of designing building performance standards (BPS) in order to facilitate compliance and promote cost-effectiveness.

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C40 Knowledge

Boston: Engaging communities on inclusive building policies

The City of Boston's 2019 Climate Action Plan (CAP) update identified high-priority strategies to accelerate progress toward the goal of making carbon neutral by 2050.

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C40 Knowledge

Portland: Closing the racial justice gap through building policy

The City of Portland has an ambitious commitment to be fossil-free by 2050 through its 100% Renewable Energy Resoultion, and the city is also a signatory to the C40 Net Zero Carbon Buildings Declaration.

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BPS Needs Assessment

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

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Life-Cycle Energy Performance Framework For Cities

This Life-Cycle Energy Performance Framework for Cities provides policymakers a tool to look across building codes, incentive and utility programs, and post-occupancy/operations policies, to identify potential policies and triggers that can be deployed to impact building energy use.

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A New Framework for Cracking the Nut of Existing Buildings

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.

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Developing Performance Standards

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.

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Asset Score

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

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ComStock and ResStock

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.

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LEED and Building Performance Standards: Working Together to Support Sustainable and Low-Carbon Buildings

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.

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Berkely Lab

Building Performance Standards Technical Assistance

Building Performance Standards (BPS) are a key policy mechanism to significantly and speedily reduce the energy use and emissions of existing buildings. BPS is primarily being implemented by cities and states, as a means to reach their climate goals. Policymakers in cities planning a BPS are grappling with a host policy design questions

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