Sometimes even the best of intentions can lead us astray. That’s certainly the case with the Salt Lake City’s proposed Mandatory Building Benchmarking and Transparency Ordinance, currently under consideration by the city council.
Energy benchmarking has the potential to be a true “win-win” issue for the city government and for the local business community, but not under the current language of the proposed ordinance, which has already had to be amended to address extensive concerns. As the president of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Utah, I suggest that the city table this proposal once again and pursue a path forward that includes a focus on cooperation.
On behalf of the city’s building owners and managers, I want to emphasize that we fully support energy benchmarking, which is simply the practice of evaluating the energy efficiency of a building over time and comparing it to similar buildings. Benchmarking is a useful and constructive way to show to building owners and property managers where they may have opportunities to save energy and money by making their buildings more energy-efficient. Both locally and nationally, the Building Owners and Managers Association strongly encourages benchmarking as a tool to enable commercial buildings to become more energy-efficient and identify opportunities to cut waste. For reasons unknown to us, some have said that the industry opposes benchmarking — this is patently untrue — and have suggested a false choice that you’re either for the ordinance or you’re against benchmarking.
Not only do we support benchmarking, but BOMA Utah has a history of supporting Salt Lake City’s sustainability goals. Specifically, we are proud to partner with the city’s Project Skyline, an initiative that encourages buildings to meet and exceed air quality and energy-saving targets by evaluating energy use, setting energy savings goals and undertaking improvements. Project Skyline is part of the City Energy Project, a joint effort led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT). The City Energy Project is designed to help mayors develop aggressive plans for tackling energy waste in large, existing buildings.
With $9 million in seed funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Kresge Foundation, two leading advocacy organizations have set up a multi-year effort to boost efficiency in buildings across 10 cities.
The 2016 winners of the Skyline Challenge in the categories of Industry Leader, Community Leadership and Most Improved Energy Performance were all active BOMA Utah members.
BOMA has been, and plans to continue to be, an engaged and enthusiastic partner with the city on sustainability issues. So we are disappointed by a misguided proposal that assumes commercial buildings are the problem instead of the solution. We are troubled by a process that has only grudgingly addressed valid, real-world concerns. This proposed ordinance was driven by outside funding and from the beginning promoted a one-size-fits-all solution that we feel is inappropriate for Salt Lake City.
Benchmarking may be a simple concept, but in practice we have seen across the country that the implementation of a city ordinance involves a host of variables. If done wrong, especially if an emphasis is placed on publicly scoring buildings, the law could unfairly disadvantage a property owner who has otherwise been proactive and responsible in terms of energy usage. A building may receive a lower score due to elements outside the control of the property owner, which may include tenant energy usage or a lack of whole building energy data. While we appreciate the efforts to address this through amendments to the proposal, the result continues to be far from what we can support.
We don’t believe that shaming members of our community is how we should do business in Salt Lake City. We also don’t believe it’s the best way to achieve the desired results. There’s another way. We could partner with the city to offer tools, resources and incentives to improve the efficiency of our buildings. We could build on the successes of Project Skyline. We could seek positive ways to encourage market-driven solutions that place value on more-efficient buildings.
We hope that the city council will pursue a new approach to benchmarking in partnership with the business community, or alternatively seek to work with the state legislature to find a broader solution. BOMA Utah stands ready to be part of that solution. Our organization represents professionals who own or manage over 75 million square feet of commercial properties and facilities in Utah. We all share the same goals for the environmental and economic health of our city. Let’s work together, as we have before, to make those goals a reality.
Scott Bennion is the senior property/asset manager for Riverpark Development and the current BOMA Utah president.