On June 5, the City Council of Kansas City, MO, passed an Energy Empowerment Ordinance that requires building energy and water use benchmarking and transparency—making Kansas City the 14th U.S. city to adopt energy benchmarking legislation.
Buildings currently account for more than 70 percent of the Kansas City region’s total energy use-- the ordinance could cumulatively reduce energy bills in the city’s largest buildings by $394 million and generate more than 1,000 jobs by 2030, according to the City Energy Project, a joint initiative of IMT and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The ordinance addresses energy use in existing municipal, commercial, and residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet. These building owners will be required to track whole-building energy and water use and report it to the city annually. Participating buildings will be phased in, starting with municipal buildings over 10,000 square feet in 2016, and expanding to include private commercial and multifamily residential buildings over 100,000 square feet in 2017. All private commercial and multifamily buildings over 50,000 square feet will be included in 2018.
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