BPS Library

A growing number of state and local governments are adopting building performance standards (BPS) to help reduce buildings’ energy costs, reduce peak electricity demand, and support climate change mitigation. Building performance standards require buildings to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, or both to meet set targets. BPS hold the potential to either benefit the affordable housing sector and its residents or cause them unintended harms, depending on how the policies are designed and implemented. This report identifies strategies that local governments, community-based organizations, energy utilities, and other stakeholders can use to support affordable housing properties and their residents during the design and implementation of BPS policies. Download the report from the ACEEE site.

Summary of some of Boston's community engagement efforts related to inclusive building policies. 

Jurisdictions and Community-Based Organizations (CBO) can use this quick-reference guide, in conjunction with the full BPS Implementation Guide, to help them establish an empowered and well-resourced CAB.

Series of BPS-related resources that provide information on building performance standards, including a fact sheet on how cities can benefit from these policies.

This Short Model BPS Law establishes broad goals and an equitable process by which stakeholders and one or more agencies will work together after passage to craft BPS rules to achieve shared goals. The streamlined law, and its greater reliance on rulemaking, make it particularly well suited for states passing a BPS.

This is a template for cities and states to develop building performance standards. It provides structural foundation that can be tailored to individual jurisdictions.

This document presents sample language that can be used by jurisdictions interested in drafting a comprehensive existing building performance policy that encompasses provisions for benchmarking, as well as additional actions beyond benchmarking. The model language, based on best practices that have been identified while working with many of the jurisdictions that have enacted successful policies, can be easily customized by policymakers to meet the unique needs of their city.

This document examines lessons from carbon policy and their applicability to building performance standards. Discusses policy in DC, NYC, and Tokyo. This report assesses the various tradeoffs and challenges of designing building performance standards (BPS) in order to facilitate compliance and promote cost-effectiveness.

This report considers the options for implementing a building performance standard across a broader scope of buildings and geography than a single city or state: federally owned or leased buildings, which comprise 1 billion square feet across the country.

This document will be of most immediate use to policymakers that are preparing to implement or are already implementing a BPS policy. In addition to specific recommendations, the guide presents a broad overview of the many aspects of implementing a BPS and thus is a valuable resource for policy planning as well as developing appropriations requests.

For cities exploring building performance standards, a high-performance building hub provides critical guidance, technical assistance, or access to available incentives to building owners, designers, contractors, and operators. This brief for policymakers explores why a city should consider offering a high-performance hub and outlines key steps in figuring out how to set one up.

This ACEEE webpage discusses approaches for facilitating statewide energy data access and the roles and opportunities for different stakeholders, including residents, multifamily building owners, businesses, utilities, and regulators. 

Provides a framework for local governments, community and industry stakeholders interested in BPS that provides guidance on how to plan and coordinate the different policy components to achieve equitable outcomes.

The Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) has prepared a framework for local governments, community and industry stakeholders interested in building performance standards that provides guidance on how to plan and coordinate the different policy components to achieve equitable outcomes. The USDN has also hosted a series of BPS webinars that are available on demand that provide background for local governments, community members, and industry professionals.

The Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) has prepared a series of BPS-related resources that provide information on building performance standards, including a fact sheet on how cities can benefit from these policies, and a matrix Comparison of U.S. Building Performance Standards that compares the requirements of existing BPS in U.S. cities and states. Additionally, IMT has also created a Model Ordinance that is intended to provide sample language for a BPS ordinance in a jurisdiction.