Seattle, Washington passed a new city ordinance requiring large commercial and multi-family property owners to
annually measure energy use to allow comparison across different buildings. Building owners
will also be required to share energy usage and ratings with
prospective buyers, tenants and lenders during the sale, lease or
financing of properties.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn approved the Energy Disclosure Ordinance Monday in an attempt to publicly identify energy-wasting buildings. It was unanimously approved by the Seattle City Council on January 25, 2010.
City officials say the new ordinance is critical to meeting the City’s energy goals, and some commercial property owners and energy efficiency contractors point to the economic and business benefits of the new policy.
Energy disclosure is one of several measures recommended by the City’s Green Building Task Force aimed at reducing energy consumption in existing buildings throughout the city by 20%.
"You can’t manage what you don’t measure," said Seattle City Council Chair Richard Conlin. "Energy disclosure is a key first step to tap into the gold mine of opportunities to save energy and money while improving the City’s existing building stock."
Commercial property managers already benchmarking buildings say measuring energy use is critical to keeping costs down and staying competitive in the tight real estate market.
"Energy costs are one of the largest expenses facing property owners and tenants. Energy spending is also an expense that can be actively managed and controlled," said Christian Gunter, Vice President of Responsible Property Investing at Kennedy Associates, a Seattle-based institutional real estate investment advisor. "Energy-efficient buildings cost less to operate, attract top tenants, and create value for building ownership. With this new ordinance, prospective buyers and tenants will gain new information needed to factor energy use into their decisions about where to invest, live and work. If you are not monitoring, benchmarking and managing energy use, you will simply be less competitive in the market-place."
As more building owners and managers realize the market benefits of measuring and managing energy use, more are seeking ways to improve building energy performance, from no-and low-cost measures such as retro-commissioning, to deep building retrofits–all of which are contributing to growth in green building and energy services industries in Seattle and across the U.S.
"We believe that as more building owners work to bring energy use down and make their properties more attractive places to live and work, job opportunities will flourish for companies and contractors in the energy efficiency business" said Ash Awad, with McKinstry, a leading performance contracting company based in the Northwest.
Seattle’s Energy Disclosure Ordinance builds on a state law passed last year to include multi-family dwellings and require annual reporting of building energy performance to the City.
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