Dear Friends,
As the year’s end approaches and we get ready to celebrate the holidays with family and friends, all of us at IMT want to thank you for your support and collaboration to achieve a more efficient built environment. We believe that IMT’s mission and the efforts we’re leading with cities, businesses, and the real estate community are now more important than ever.
Because of your support, we were able to make significant progress in 2016. This momentum will carry us into 2017. We will not slow our drive to create a stronger, healthier, and more efficient buildings for everyone. Here are some of our proudest accomplishments this year:
Guiding business to more sustainable practices:
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IMT took the lead in tackling the biggest barrier to unlocking billions of dollars in building energy savings—the split incentive—by launching the next step into the future of building efficiency, the Landlord-Tenant Energy Partnership. This important initiative will help transform leased space by deploying energy efficiency in six billion square feet of commercial and retail leased space, while catalyzing new energy investments.
- The Green Lease Leaders program—created by IMT and the U.S. Department of Energy—completed its third year, with the 2016 Green Lease Leaders portfolios totaling more than 350 million square feet (sq. ft.), bringing the cumulative floor area of all Green Lease Leaders to over 1 billion sq. ft. Today, participating companies save annual energy equal to taking 66,000 cars of the roads.
Unlocking the power of efficiency in cities:
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Mayors from 10 new U.S. cities joined the City Energy Project, a project launched by IMT and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in 2014 to address energy use and climate pollution from buildings. By 2030, the 20 participating cities have the potential to save more than $1.5 billion annually in energy bills and reduce carbon pollution by 9.6 million metric tons per year, equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.
- IMT helped pass energy benchmarking and transparency laws in seven U.S. cities in 2016, marking the culmination of years of hard work and collaboration in Pittsburgh, Orlando, Los Angeles, Rockville (MD), Portland (ME), Evanston (IL), and Denver. The City Energy Project lead direct and on-the-ground support and engagement efforts in Denver, L.A., and Orlando, which set the stage for mayors to sign these locally-tailored policies into law; and with that unlocking invaluable data for the real estate market to act upon and make their buildings more efficient and their infrastructure stronger.
Providing new and useful resources:
- IMT collaborated with industry and government leaders to produce several useful reports, guides, and surveys that spanned from catalyzing efficiency in apartment buildings, to illuminating the benefits of benchmarking building performance, to transforming the market through energy management information systems, and much more. Whether you are a building owner or tenant taking first steps to control energy use in a building or space, or a mayor or city sustainability director looking to take the next big step in harnessing the multiple benefits of energy efficiency, IMT’s growing library of free resources can help.
We are pleased with the ground we gained in 2016, however, much work lies ahead to achieve our shared goals. As many of you already know, buildings are the single largest user of energy and source of carbon pollution in the U.S., accounting for 40 percent of America’s energy use and costing more than $400 billion a year in energy bills. If they were a country, these buildings would produce more carbon emissions than any other country except the U.S. and China, ranking third globally.
We are confident that by working closely with our partners, we can reduce these numbers through energy efficiency, resulting in environmental, health, and economic benefits for everyone, and getting us closer to our shared vision of a future in which all buildings are highly efficient. Thank you for helping to make this possible.
Wishing you a productive and meaningful New Year,
—Cliff Majersik, Executive Director
