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?

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.

The Building Decarbonization Code is a groundbreaking tool aiming to deliver carbon neutral performance. The Version 1.2 code language from NBI serves as a building decarbonization overlay to the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and is now compatible with ASHRAE 90.1. It is designed to help states and cities working to mitigate carbon resulting from energy use in the built environment, which accounts for 39% of U.S. emissions.

This guide is part of a larger project focused on the technical development of advanced energy codes and policies, and on support for jurisdictions to adopt and implement these approaches.

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.

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

IMT’s model ordinance is intended to provide the structural foundation for a strong BPS ordinance in any jurisdiction.

This module is meant to provide a starting point for jurisdictions to engage with community members on building-related issues that are important to the community.

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.