Energy Transparency in the Multifamily Housing Sector

The American entity from the Global Buildings Performance Network, IMT (Institute for Market Transformation), has issued a new publication on the energy transparency in the multifamily housing sector.

Mirroring recent trends in other real estate sectors, the multifamily housing sector is subject to an increasing number of rules and regulations related to energy-performance benchmarking and performance disclosure. State and local governments are moving rapidly to institutionalize benchmarking and make energy-performance information available in the real estate marketplace, while major lending institutions are taking initial steps to factor building energy performance into financial products. The goal of these new rules is to enable transparent building energy-performance information to drive energy efficiency improvements in multifamily housing that lower energy bills for residents; contribute to greater local housing affordability; and create new jobs and services related to energy efficiency.

The main issues being:

  • A critical shortage of information about building energy performance which has prevented property markets from valuing energy efficiency and severely undermined both public and private efforts to increase the energy efficiency of multifamily housing. This could be tackled with innovative approaches such as energy benchmarking and disclosure policies.
  • The multifamily sector is fragmented and resists a one-size-fits-all approach, ranging from low-income public housing to luxury properties, all with varied sources of public and private financing.
  • Policies must reflect and accommodate the diversity of both the building stock and its stakeholders.

This report is intended to serve as a guide for policymakers and multifamily stakeholders on benchmarking and disclosure rules and regulations. It provides an introduction to the multifamily housing sector, followed by a thorough review of existing benchmarking and disclosure policies and an assessment of continuing policy challenges and opportunities.

IMT expects this report to have broad impact both informing multifamily stakeholders about existing laws, and in setting a foundation to make new laws stronger and more effective for local governments, building owners and operators, and the millions of multifamily residents nationwide.

The report includes information on each existing law and identifies best practices in policy design and implementation creating the most complete resource to date on this emerging trend.

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