Navigate BPS requirements with confidence.
Building Performance Standards (BPS) are laws that require existing buildings to meet energy use or greenhouse gas emission targets by specific deadlines. Buildings account for nearly 40% of energy consumption in the United States and produce over 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. BPS address this directly by setting measurable reduction targets for commercial and multifamily buildings, with compliance timelines that get more stringent over time.
Unlike building energy codes, which apply only to new construction and major renovations, BPS apply to existing buildings. This is what makes them powerful and what makes them hard. The existing building stock is where the emissions are, and it is where the work needs to happen.
BPS have been adopted at both the state and city level across the country. Washington State’s Clean Buildings Performance Standard was one of the first statewide BPS, requiring commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet to meet energy use intensity (EUI) targets. Seattle’s Building Emissions Performance Standard targets commercial and multifamily buildings over 20,000 square feet, with a goal of cutting building emissions by 27% by 2050. Oregon’s Building Performance Standard, developed through House Bill 3409, covers commercial buildings with EUI targets across two climate zones.
Beyond the Pacific Northwest, New York City’s Local Law 97 covers buildings over 25,000 square feet with some of the most aggressive carbon emission limits in the country. Colorado, Maryland, and several other states and cities have adopted or are developing their own BPS. Each jurisdiction brings different policy contexts, building stocks, and stakeholder needs to the table.
We work with state agencies, cities, and utilities on every phase of BPS implementation. Our work includes:
Most firms that work on BPS come from either a policy background or an engineering background. We come from evaluation. Our team has decades of experience in measurement and verification, which means we approach BPS with the question that matters most: will this policy actually produce the energy reductions it was designed to achieve?
This evaluation mindset shapes everything we do. When we develop targets, we are rigorous about data quality and representativeness. When we design compliance pathways, we think about how savings will be verified. When we engage stakeholders, we ground the conversation in evidence rather than assumptions.
Read more about building performance standards in our blog series on BPS, where we cover target setting, compliance costs, and the journey from policy to performance.
Implementing a building performance standard is a multi-year process that requires sustained technical and political commitment. After legislation is passed, the detailed work of rulemaking begins: defining which buildings are covered, establishing energy use intensity or emissions targets by building type, setting compliance timelines and penalty structures, and designing the support systems that building owners will need to comply.
Data is at the center of every decision. Targets must be based on representative energy use data for the jurisdiction’s actual building stock, not national averages or theoretical models. This requires combining data from multiple sources, including utility benchmarking programs, the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), regional building stock assessments, and local datasets from state-owned buildings, schools, and city benchmarking ordinances. Each data source has limitations, and the methodology for combining them must be transparent and defensible.
Stakeholder engagement runs throughout the process. Building owners need to understand what is coming and have a voice in how targets are set. Utilities need to align their program offerings with compliance pathways. Contractors need time to build capacity. Environmental and community groups need assurance that the standards will produce real reductions. Managing these perspectives while maintaining technical rigor is the core challenge of BPS implementation, and it is where our experience matters most.