Better Buildings. Stronger City.

Designed to reduce citywide building energy use 10% by 2015, building energy benchmarking and disclosure is a key part of Philadelphia’s Greenworks plan, and Mayor Nutter’s ambitious goal to make Philadelphia the greenest city in the country.

After passing the Energy Benchmarking ordinance in 2012, Philadelphia joined a select group of cities committed to promoting better performing, more efficient buildings.

Benchmarking is an opportunity to reposition and repurpose Philadelphia as a city of the future, and cannot be done without your involvement.

Starting now, all commercial buildings in Philadelphia with over 50,000 square feet must share their energy and water consumption annually, allowing building owners and managers to compare usage data and see how they can improve their energy efficiency. This law will promote transparency in the commercial real estate market, drive improved energy performance, and promote savings for building owners and tenants.

Information is power, and measuring how much energy a building uses is the first step toward managing and reducing it. Benchmarking is a powerful tool to motivate owners to improve their buildings, which cuts waste and saves citizens money. It will provide you with a wealth of data to help you make better and more informed decisions in regards to your property. Comparing your building to other like-sized and –aged buildings in the region will assist you in finding where your energy usage can improve, and allow you to target specific ways to save energy and operate efficiently. The more data you have, the better you can evaluate your asset.

Ultimately, benchmarking helps the entire region. When we start using real energy data to improve our buildings, quality of life for our residents goes up, and energy bills -- along with greenhouse gas emissions -- go down.

Some additional benefits to Benchmarking include:

  • Last year, the U.S. EPA published the largest analysis of energy benchmarking to date, based on more than 35,000 buildings. On average, they saved 7 percent in energy over three years.
  • If all buildings in the U.S. were benchmarked, more than 18 million tons of carbon dioxide could be saved each year. That would equate to $4.2 billion in energy savings just in the first year.