Navigating building performance standards at state and local levels
BERDO, BUEDO, LBER, oh my! The writing on the wall is clear: building performance standards for clean energy and emissions are taking shape nationwide. Here is a guide to the many acronyms cropping up in conversations about emissions reductions.
Building performance standards are an emerging trend. In cities across the nation—including Boston, Newton, and Cambridge in Massachusetts and elsewhere—and even in some states, such as Maryland, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington, government entities are taking action to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from buildings by requiring building owners to report emissions and implement measures to move away from the use of fossil fuels.
Boston’s building performance standards
This year, 2025, marks an important milestone for greenhouse gas reporting and compliance in Boston. Since 2013, owners of commercial and residential buildings of 20,000 square feet or more, or those containing at least 35 residential units in Boston have been required to report details of their buildings’ energy use to the city under the Building Emission Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO).
Beginning this year, in addition to continued reporting, buildings will be required to keep their emissions below thresholds set by the city, or to make alternative compliance payments if they fail to do so. The compliance payments are currently set at $234 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted in excess of performance standards. Thresholds are determined by building type, normalized by building area. Emissions targets lower in five-year increments until reaching zero in 2050.
A graph illustrating the emissions thresholds set by BERDO for four different types of buildings.
All money collected through BERDO compliance payments is reinvested into the Equitable Emissions Investment Fund (EEIF), which goes towards decarbonization efforts throughout the city, particularly in underserved areas.
Based on the most up-to-date publicly available reporting data, more than 73% of buildings subject to BERDO will meet the compliance threshold for 2025 emissions. Looking forward, however, 60% of buildings in Boston will need to reduce their emissions before 2030 to avoid compliance payments.
Since decarbonization is a lengthy planning and construction process that often spans years, the best way to stay on track with BERDO compliance is to start planning now. See our recent post about how zero-over-time plans approach decarbonization strategically, leading to cost savings, increases in property value, and decreases in total cost of ownership.
State-level emissions reporting is coming
While BERDO applies exclusively to Boston, Newton has a similar program (also called BERDO) and Cambridge has an equivalent called the Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance (BEUDO). Soon the rest of Massachusetts will be covered under the Large Buildings Energy Reporting (LBER) requirements. In this case, “large buildings” are defined as being more than 20,000 square feet.
Beginning in 2025, all buildings included in LBER will be required to report their energy use in a manner similar to BERDO. If the Commonwealth of Massachusetts continues to follow in the City of Boston’s footsteps, a building performance standard and associated alternative compliance payments may not be far off for a wider population of building owners. Other states are also on their way towards implementing these types of policies, which the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions tracks in the form of interactive maps.
Building owners are often dissuaded from undergoing sustainable construction projects in the short term by the upfront cost. That construction is expensive is an undeniable fact. But when considering whether to replace a dying boiler with a similar system rather than taking on a more expensive, high-efficiency alternative, it’s easy to focus on that initial price tag, deprioritizing the long-term cost savings associated with vastly reducing energy usage.
Fossil-fuel-powered boilers are a dying breed.
When taking a longer view of the lifecycle cost of owning a system, many sustainable options already come out ahead of their less modern counterparts. BERDO’s new incentive against excess energy use tilts that equation further in favor of the more efficient options, whether that means electrified heating systems, lighting controls systems, building envelope improvements, or LED conversions.
More sustainable buildings save money in the long run, and that is true now more than ever. The upshot: get ahead of building performance standards early and you’ll reap benefits that go well beyond decarbonization.
Do you need help navigating the building performance standards coming your way? Reach out and talk to us!
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