From the Editor
If you’re not familiar with the Energy Star for Buildings Label or the Portfolio Manager benchmarking tool, now could not be a better time to start looking into both. There are few reasons why.

First, with the recession still hammering away at facility budgets, energy efficiency is more important now than ever before. And Portfolio Manager offers a suite of tools for determining your baseline energy use, comparing it to similar buildings, and finding savings opportunities.

Secondly, depending on your location, you soon may not have a choice. Legislation in Washington, D.C., and California will soon require non-residential buildings to make available energy-use information in a format compatible with Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager. 

California Assembly Bill 1103 says that by Jan. 1, 2010, all commercial building owners must make available both their electric and gas data, as well as their ratings to potential buyers, lessees or lenders as part of whole-building transaction. The Clean and Affordable Energy Act of 2008 says that, beginning in 2010, privately owned commercial buildings in Washington, D.C., must be benchmarked with Portfolio Manager on an annual basis and data will be available in a publicly accessible data base.

No doubt these two pieces of legislation will lead to others. A provision to create a national label for commercial facilities was recently added to a proposed climate bill, and ASHRAE is developing its own building energy label to be released in June.

Now is the time to jump on the energy labeling bandwagon. Or have you already? As always, I’m interested in your feedback.

Cheers,

Greg Zimmerman, editor  

Green Strategies
Let the Energy Numbers Do the Talking
Energy Star helps improve energy performance by uniting an organization around a common set of metrics.   

In the News
Call for Comments on Green Building Standard
The nation’s first standard for high-performance green buildings began its third public review period May 1. Facility professionals can comment on the draft standard through June 15.

Green Toolkit
Policies Leveraging Energy Star Tools
This interactive guide lists all the state and local policies that rely on Energy Star tools, such as Portfolio Manager and Target Finder.       

Green Pulse
Does your organization use Energy Star tools to benchmark energy performance?

— Yes, and we have received the Energy Star for Buildings Label.
— Yes, we use Energy Star tools, but are still working on getting a Label.
— We are giving Energy Star serious consideration, but haven’t done it.
— No, we have no plans to use Energy Star.

Click here to respond to the poll. If you are not yet a member of MyFacilitiesnet.com, please click here first to register, then sign into your account, and then click here to vote.

GreenTech Conference & Exposition

What’s Your Score?  Benchmarking Energy Use through Energy Star