Major real estate companies in New York City are supporting an ambitious plan to reduce energy in large buildings by 20% by 2030. The nonprofit Urban Green Council’s 80x50 Buildings Partnership published a report this week detailing how NYC stakeholders plan to achieve this goal.
Called Blueprint for Efficiency, the report has backing from big names in local real estate, including SL Green Realty, Vornado Realty Trust, and Related Companies, have signed onto the plan, Bloomberg reported.
Urban Green Council, the local US Green Building Council chapter, describes the 80x50 Buildings Partnership as a collaboration among leading New York City stakeholders to develop smart climate change policies. The nonprofit brought together more than 70 individuals from over 40 organizations across sectors.
“The Partnership brought together organizations from opposite sides of the fence. But it turns out the fence wasn’t as high as we thought,” Russell Unger, executive director of Urban Green Council, told Curbed New York’s Zoe Rosenberg. “Building owners want to improve energy efficiency. Advocates do care about feasibility. We just needed to recast disagreements as questions, and the time to work through them.”
Two-thirds of citywide carbon emissions come from buildings, which is why the group focused on them. Blueprint for Efficiency is the result of eight months of discussion and over 1,300 meeting hours, the council says. Under the plan, all buildings over 25,000 square feet would be included, affecting 50,000 buildings.
Proposals outlined in the report include developing flexible compliance pathways such as green power purchase and efficiency credit trading, creating a metric based on Energy Star that is calibrated to NYC building data, regulating energy sources together, and expanding financing to help owners comply.
Under an optional efficiency trading program, building owners could reach their energy reduction targets by buying energy savings from upgrades in other buildings, the proposal explains.
In addition, the report recommends new rules for major capital improvements (MCIs) such as boiler replacements. Often those building costs get passed on to tenants. However, under the proposal, low-cost, energy-saving measures would not be qualified as MCIs for the rent-stabilized sector. The plan suggests new support and incentives so that the rent-stabilized sector can achieve the same efficiency gains as market-rate buildings.
Russell Unger, Urban Green Council’s executive director, published an op-ed in Crains New York. “The Blueprint for Efficiency will achieve major energy reductions while avoiding rent hikes in rent-stabilized buildings,” he wrote. “It will ensure that buildings with good track records of sustainability are not overly burdened. It will offer different paths to compliance, and provide help to owners who need it. And critically, it is supported by a who’s who of stakeholders.”
The full report is available here.
