If Washington Can't Lead in Policy, At Least It's Leading in Energy Efficiency

A few years ago, passing energy benchmarking rules was considered a significant leap forward in efficiency policy. Benchmarking is still in its infancy in the U.S., but some early movers, like Washington, D.C., are already looking far beyond gathering Energy Star scores. The nation’s capital was the first city in the U.S. to pass benchmarking goals, and it just released its second year of public disclosure data from the district’s energy benchmarking ordinance. In 2012,Greentech Media compared some of the initial results with New York City, which also requires public disclosure of benchmarking data. At the time, New York seemed to have a more comprehensive plan of attack for its lowest-performing buildings. But Washington, D.C.’s achievements in recent years cannot be overlooked. Here are five ways that Washington is getting things done (at least in energy efficiency).

Sustainable plan for D.C.

Washington, D.C. released a comprehensive sustainability plan in February 2013 that includes a section on the built environment. The plan calls for a 50 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption in the city’s building stock. The district’s Green Building Advisory Council is currently hashing out the details of a new green construction code and launching a green building fund grant program. “The ultimate goal of greening the codes is to make high performance construction more mainstream -- and to eventually get to the point where we don‘t have to call it green anymore,” the report states. “When we achieve this goal, one milestone of the district‘s green building leadership will be achieved.”

Leading the way in benchmarking

Washington, D.C. was the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to require both public and private buildings of a certain size to disclose energy performance. The trend has caught on, with several large cities and a few states also passing benchmarking rules. Some studies have found benchmarking can cut energy use by up to 7 percent, just by making owners more aware of how the building is performing and pointing out anomalies that need to be corrected, but it is still too early to see if those savings will remain consistent across various cities. Benchmarking is just one energy efficiency domain in which Washington has made significant gains. The city leads the nation in LEED-certified square footage per capita. Cities like New York and Chicago may have far more LEED buildings overall, but Washington, D.C. is the only municipality with more than 100 square feet of LEED space per capita.