To increase the visibility of building energy performance data in the real estate market and drive energy efficiency action at a transformative scale, jurisdictions must find ways to increase the accessibility and usability of benchmarking data for both building owners and their representatives (the supply side) and tenants and investors (the demand side). Sharing Data to Motivate Action is intended to help implementers of benchmarking and transparency policies understand the latest techniques for developing energy benchmarking scorecards, also called energy benchmarking profiles, which present energy data to building owners as actionable information to encourage investment in efficiency.
The first section of the report describes the elements of energy benchmarking scorecards and messaging approaches used by several cities. It includes suggestions for new ideas informed by research and the Institute for Market Transformation’s (IMT) experience working with jurisdictions on benchmarking policies and programs. The second section showcases the processes that Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Seattle used to develop their benchmarking scorecards. This section will help new policy implementers understand the basics of developing and distributing scorecards, enabling them to get energy use information into the hands of decision makers as effectively and efficiently as possible.
This report was created by IMT in conjunction with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) Benchmarking and Energy Data Collection Action Group, with a focus on sharing building performance data to motivate action on energy efficiency.
Those implementing a benchmarking policy or program are highly encouraged to read these related IMT and USDN reports:
- Managing Benchmarking Data Quality, which proposes a framework for checking the quality of submitted benchmarking data and for handling suspected data errors.
- Analyzing Benchmarking Data, which looks at the types of analysis that jurisdictions with benchmarking laws have used to extract valuable information from the benchmarking data.
