Local Topics - Energy Efficiency in Non-Governmental Buildings

Bringing Building Energy Efficiency to Your Community

Municipal operations typically only represent a small percentage of the total GHG emissions of a jurisdiction. Therefore, local governments have an important opportunity to reduce GHG emissions within their jurisdiction by promoting energy efficiency to building owners throughout the community. EPA, through the ENERGY STAR program, provides local governments with tools and resources to lead by example in their own buildings while promoting increased energy efficiency for other building types.

Promoting Energy Efficiency for Non-Governmental Buildings

Local governments can support increased building efficiency by working with community groups and considering voluntary and regulatory policies.

Work with Other Groups in Your Community: Raising awareness about the environmental and financial benefits of energy efficiency to all building owners can help local government efforts to reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. ENERGY STAR offers tailored programs to help local officials improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions for multiple building types in their community:

• Architects and Engineers: By 2035, 75 percent of the buildings in the United States will be either new or renovated. Architects have a unique opportunity to change the way buildings use energy and contribute to carbon emissions.
• Commercial Real Estate: The average building wastes about a third of the energy it consumes.
• Congregations: Most congregations can cut energy costs by up to 30% by investing strategically in efficient equipment, facility upgrades and maintenance.
• Health care: Every dollar a nonprofit health care organization saves on energy is equivalent to generating new revenues of $20 for hospitals or $10 for medical offices.
• Higher Education: ENERGY STAR helps institutions become environmental leaders and save money for repair and renovation, hiring of new faculty, new construction, and other core activities.
• Hotels and Hospitality: On average, America’s 47,000 hotels spend about 6 percent of their operating costs on energy each year. Whether the facility is a large convention hotel, part of a national chain, or a small inn or motel, there are energy efficiency opportunities that will improve guest comfort, lengthen equipment life, and reduce operating costs.
• Manufacturing and Industry: Whether making steel, refining oil, or canning vegetables, there is a lot of room for improving energy efficiency throughout the industry.
• Schools: The annual energy bill to run America’s primary and secondary schools is a staggering $8 billion.
• Small Businesses: Small business owners can typically save as much money and prevent as much pollution, per square foot, as large organizations.
• Restaurants: Restaurants are energy-intensive operations due to cooking equipment, heating, cooling, lighting, and sanitation, often using five to seven times more energy per square foot than other commercial buildings.

Consider Voluntary Programs and Regulatory Policies: Local governments across the country are taking bold steps to protect the environment and lower energy costs by adopting energy efficiency policies that leverage EPA’s ENERGY STAR tools to reduce energy use in commercial buildings, through both required policy measures and voluntary campaigns.