On Friday, July 24, 2015, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy and Archbishop Blase J. Cupich of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese met in Chicago to discuss climate change, the Pope’s recent environmental encyclical, and EPA’s pending Clean Power Plan. Administrator McCarthy and Archbishop Cupich also discussed the Archdiocese of Chicago’s partnership with ENERGY STAR® and efforts to improve sustainability and energy efficiency.

In an article published in the Chicago Sun-Times, McCarthy and Cupich wrote, “With this step, the Archdiocese of Chicago became the first U.S. archdiocese to commit to benchmarking and tracking its energy, water, and emissions performance. We are already seeing the results in energy savings and carbon footprint impact as creation care is promoted in communities across Lake and Cook counties. The hope is that congregations across the nation will be encouraged to join this effort to promote environmentally important behavior by way of education and education through action.”

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2015 ENERGY STAR Certification Applications Due November 16

Is your building among the most energy efficient in the nation? Consider applying for the ENERGY STAR! ENERGY STAR certified buildings use, on average, 35 percent less energy than similar buildings nationwide. So whether you’re interested in simply lowering your operating costs or establishing your organization as an environmental leader, you’ll find that there’s a lot of value in the ENERGY STAR.

This year you’ll have until November 16 to submit your application for 2015 certification.

Click here to learn the top Ten Reasons to Pursue ENERGY STAR Certification.

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New Features in Portfolio Manager and Data Exchange Web Services Tools

EPA released new features to its ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® tool on August 3, including the ability for users to create reports that include more than two time periods. Checks of data quality have also been expanded to help users more easily identify and correct the underlying data issues that result in “Not Available” alerts within annual energy performance metrics. In addition, properties may be reassigned to different weather stations based on updates to the reference weather station dataset.

As part of this update, EPA also released enhancements to the Portfolio Manager data exchange web services tools. The highest impact updates include the ability for service providers that exchange data with Portfolio Manager to associate a single meter to a property, and a new capability to identify the reasons why a property is not receiving an ENERGY STAR score.

More information on the web services update is available here and additional information on the Portfolio Manager update is available here.

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Texas and Ohio Compete to be Biggest Hospital Energy Loser

It all started with a friendly taunt. “What’s a buckeye, anyway?” asked Texas. Ohio’s response: “The nut is poisonous and was used...to stun or kill fish in still water.” The Texas Association for Healthcare Facilities Management and the Ohio Hospital Association put their game faces on and the first state-versus-state energy competition was born. More than 150 hospitals will be competing in 2015 to reduce the most energy as measured by EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. Other state rivalries are rumored to be heating up! For information on how to start your own competition, see Battle of the Buildings. Visit www.tahfm.org for periodic updates on the OH/TX competition.

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ENERGY STAR Partner Salt Lake City Recognizes Private Sector Air Quality Improvement & Energy Savings

On July 15, EPA’s Matthew Dalbey, Director of the Office of Sustainable Communities, joined Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker and other city leaders to honor the winners of the Project Skyline Mayor’s Challenge 2015 Awards. Launched in May 2014, the multi-year competition challenges building owners across Salt Lake City to reduce citywide building energy use by 15 percent by 2020 and proactively meet—and exceed—the air quality and energy saving targets of the Mayor’s Sustainable Salt Lake – Plan 2015.

Participants in the Mayor’s Skyline Challenge are benchmarking in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager to evaluate their buildings’ energy use, set energy savings goals, and conduct energy saving improvement projects, putting the ENERGY STAR approach to strategic energy management into practice.

The Project Skyline Mayor’s Challenge is part of a broader effort to improve building efficiency in the city. In 2014, Salt Lake City was selected as a member of the City Energy Project, a national, 10-city initiative to cut energy waste in large buildings. In February of this year, the Mayor issued an Executive Order as part of the City’s Project Skyline directing department leaders to benchmark all city-owned facilities in Portfolio Manager, make benchmarking results transparent to the public, and develop annual energy management plans.

Learn more about Salt Lake City’s Project Skyline at www.slcgov.com/projectskyline.

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Congratulations to Cenergistic, EPA’s ENERGY STAR Top Certifier

In July, EPA put out its first ever ENERGY STAR Top Certifiers list, which recognized 13 companies that each certified more than 150 facilities last year. At the top of the list was service and product provider (SPP) partner Cenergistic, which helped its customers achieve ENERGY STAR certification for a whopping 490 school buildings in 2014! You can see who else made the cut by checking out the full Top Certifiers list.

If you are interested in making improvements and achieving ENERGY STAR certification for your facilities, consider working with an ENERGY STAR SPP partner. An ENERGY STAR SPP partner can help you reduce energy costs and operating expenses and establish your organization as an environmental leader, while enhancing your employees’ productivity and job satisfaction. You can find a list of SPP partners here.

EPA also maintains a list of SPPs who have volunteered to verify applications for ENERGY STAR free of charge for K-12 schools and houses of worship.

For more information on how to achieve ENERGY STAR certification to highlight stellar management, please visit www.energystar.gov.

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EPA Publishes the Annual 2014 ENERGY STAR Snapshot

The ENERGY STAR Snapshot is an annual report that provides an at-a-glance summary of the latest national ENERGY STAR metrics to help our partners see the impact of their efforts. Specifically, the Snapshot summarizes national, state, and local trends in energy and water benchmarking of commercial and industrial properties. It also provides information about ENERGY STAR certified commercial and industrial properties, and commercial building designs. Through 2014, more than 400,000 commercial buildings have been benchmarked in Portfolio Manager, and more than 25,000 buildings have been ENERGY STAR certified. Learn more about the benchmarked and certified buildings in your city and state by downloading this report.

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Featured Certified Building: St. Anthony Hospital – Lakewood, Colorado

In June, St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood, Colo., achieved its second consecutive ENERGY STAR certification. How did they do it? Key to the hospital’s success was the formation of an energy optimization team in 2012, comprised of St. Anthony’s facility operators and managers as well as professionals from design, commissioning, and controls and construction firms. In 2013, the team implemented a number of measures which will reduce their energy use by an estimated 8 percent and save $84,000 annually.

Energy savings measures implemented in 2013 include the following:

• Reprogrammed air flow in operating rooms to achieve variable flow – this reduces flow to the minimum flow required by code, but allows for air flow to increase quickly in response to surgery staff requests for cooler room temperatures. This measure saves fan, chilled water, and boiler energy when the extra air is no longer needed to cool the space; more than 80 percent of the occupied periods do not require extra air.
• Administrative area occupancy scheduling – space temperature and setpoints were programmed to achieve fan and plant energy reduction during unoccupied periods.
• Anesthetizing Area Humidity reduction – the hospital took advantage of an ASHRAE 170 change recently adopted by CMS that allows minimum humidity in anesthetizing areas to be reduced from 30 percent to 20 percent; this is a big energy saver in Colorado's dry climate

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EPA’s 2014 ENERGY STAR Battle of the Buildings: Team Challenge

Did you know? The winner of EPA’s 2014 ENERGY STAR Battle of the Buildings: Team Challenge reduced energy use by 25 percent in just one year! Read their story and others in the 2014 wrap-up report.

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EPA’s ENERGY STAR National Building Competition: Battle of the Buildings

For the sixth consecutive year, EPA’s ENERGY STAR program is hosting the National Building Competition: Battle of the Buildings to help school districts and organizations improve the energy and water efficiency of their buildings, save money, and protect the environment.

Improving energy efficiency in buildings is the single most effective way to eliminate energy waste. Energy use in commercial buildings accounts for nearly 20 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and energy use at a cost of more than $190 billion per year. On average, 30 percent of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted. Most of the energy used in the buildings where we work, play, and learn comes from the burning of fossil fuels at power plants, which contributes to climate change. The less energy we use, the fewer greenhouse gases we produce.

Be a Winner!

In the spirit of popular weight-loss competitions, participants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia are battling it out to see who can reduce their energy and water use the most. More than 125 teams and more than 6,500 individual competitors are measuring and tracking their building’s monthly energy and water consumption using ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®, EPA’s online measurement and tracking tool. Many will work toward earning ENERGY STAR certification, the symbol of superior energy efficiency.

EPA will recognize the overall Top Teams and Top Buildings, determined by the percentage-based reduction in energy or water use achieved between 2014 and 2015. EPA will also recognize Top Buildings by building category using the same metrics, as well as all individual and team competitors who reduce energy or water use by 20 percent or more between 2014 and 2015.

Previous competitions provided a valuable platform for organizations to test innovative approaches and technologies that can be expanded to entire building portfolios. Today, the results of previous competitions serve as a source of best practices, lessons learned, and public energy performance data that can help inform the commercial building market. Achievements of past competitors are summarized in wrap-up reports on the competition website.

EPA maintains a competition website featuring a list of competitors and their “weigh-in” results, as well as tips and links to EPA’s existing inventory of ENERGY STAR tools and resources.

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ENERGY STAR® Brand Awareness Continues to Grow

Brand Recognition Increases

May 2015, Washington, DC – Results from the National Awareness of ENERGY STAR® for 2014 are now available. Analysis of the data from the fifteenth annual Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) household survey shows the strength of the ENERGY STAR brand by measuring label recognition, understanding, and influence on purchasing decisions.

Consistent adherence to the brand tenets by EPA and DOE and long-term brand promotion by members of CEE and trade allies has paid off. In 2014, 89 percent of households recognized the ENERGY STAR label when it was shown to them. This constitutes an increase of 48 percent since CEE first conducted the survey in 2000.

“This year’s survey results show that the ENERGY STAR label continues to be strongly recognized and used by the majority of Americans,” observed Kira Ashby, Program Manager with Evaluation, Research and Behavior at CEE. “This research demonstrates the continued impact efficiency program administrators have in promoting the label, and CEE members are proud to support this report.”

View report highlights or download the whole report.

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ENERGY STAR Energy Efficiency Student Toolkit for K-12 Schools

K-12 schools in the United States spend more than $8 billion every year on energy costs alone. In fact, the energy used to light classrooms and hallways, power computer labs, and heat and cool school buildings costs more than textbooks and technology combined, and more than teachers’ collective salaries. Yet as much as 30 percent of energy consumed in schools is wasted! Read the reports...

• K-12 Student Toolkit – Students
• K-12 Student Toolkit – Teachers

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Washington, D.C., Emerges for the First Time as Top City with the Most ENERGY STAR Certified Buildings

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the 2015 list of top cities with the most ENERGY STAR certified buildings. For the first time since 2008, a city other than Los Angeles leads the rankings. Washington, D.C., debuted in the top spot with 480 ENERGY STAR certified buildings in 2014. These and other cities across America are seeing the important role that their buildings can play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“This list shows how America’s cities are leading the nation in cutting carbon emissions and fighting climate change,” said Jean Lupinacci, chief of the ENERGY STAR Commercial & Industrial program. “By embracing energy efficiency as a simple and effective pathway to reach their sustainability goals, these cities are demonstrating the tangible benefits that result from simple, cost-effective reductions in energy use.”

In most cities, commercial buildings are the largest source of carbon emissions. Chicago, for example, estimates that the energy used by buildings accounts for 70 percent of the city’s carbon emissions. In New York City, that figure jumps to nearly 80 percent.

To date, more than 25,000 buildings across America have earned EPA’s ENERGY STAR. These buildings have saved more than $3.4 billion on utility bills and prevented greenhouse gas emissions equal to the annual electricity use from 2.4 million homes.

Energy use in commercial buildings accounts for 17 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at a cost of more than $100 billion per year. ENERGY STAR certified office buildings cost $0.50 cents less per square foot to operate than average office buildings, and use nearly two times less energy per square foot than average office buildings. Commercial buildings that earn EPA’s ENERGY STAR must perform in the top 25 percent of similar buildings nationwide and must be independently verified by a licensed professional engineer or a registered architect. ENERGY STAR certified buildings use an average of 35 percent less energy and are responsible for 35 percent less carbon dioxide emissions than typical buildings. Many types of commercial buildings can earn the ENERGY STAR, including office buildings, K-12 schools, hotels, and retail stores.

ENERGY STAR® is the simple choice for energy efficiency. For more than 20 years, people across America have looked to EPA’s ENERGY STAR program for guidance on how to save energy, save money, and protect the environment. Behind each blue label is a product, building, or home that is independently certified to use less energy and cause fewer of the emissions that contribute to climate change. Today, ENERGY STAR is the most widely recognized symbol for energy efficiency in the world, helping families and businesses save $300 billion on utility bills, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by two billion metric tons since 1992. Join the millions who are already making a difference at energystar.gov.

More on the 2015 top cities: www.energystar.gov/topcities

More on ENERGY STAR certified buildings: www.energystar.gov/buildinglist

More on earning ENERGY STAR certification for commercial and industrial buildings

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