Building Performance Standards
What are Building Performance Standards?
Building Performance Standards (BPS) are policies that require owners of large buildings — usually 20,000 or 50,000 square feet and larger – to improve the sustainability of their buildings over time by tracking annual energy use and other metrics and making investments that allow their buildings to achieve successively ambitious targets in future years, with set milestone dates.
BPS policies can be set at the city, county, or state level and the details vary by jurisdiction. They are gaining popularity across the United States as a mechanism for cities to achieve their climate and other sustainability targets.
BPS policies typically include a long-term efficiency or emissions goal for existing buildings (e.g. zero emissions by 2045), with interim milestones every 4-5 years. This gives building owners a clear understanding of future requirements and broad latitude of how to reach the targets, allowing them to choose which building improvements are most effective and when they should make them.
Building Performance Foundations
Building Performance Standards
Where in California have BPS policies been adopted?
The only city in California with a BPS policy in place currently in Chula Vista, but the state requires annual energy reporting (benchmarking) for most buildings larger than 50,000 square feet, and a number of cities have their own benchmarking and beyond policies, which may require benchmarking for smaller buildings and prescriptive actions, including energy audits, retro commissioning, and prescriptive. Explore current benchmarking and beyond policies here.
Additionally, a number of cities are developing or close to adopting BPS policies. Explore BPS policies under development in California here.