18 minute read
How is an ENERGY STAR Score Calculated?
How is an ENERGY STAR
Score Calculated?
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By: CRE Insight Journal
ENERGY STAR® is an important program for buildings and their owners, engineers, and managers. Ninety percent of American households recognize the ENERGY STAR® label as a marker of energy efficiency on buildings, appliances, homes, lights, and more.
But what is ENERGY STAR®?
ENERGY STAR®
First and foremost, ENERGY STAR® is a program to certify energy efficiency backed by the United States Government. This important program raises the bar on environmental savings. Run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), thousands of industrial, commercial, utility, state, and local organizations partner with it.
ENERGY STAR came about in 1992 when it was established by the EPA. It operates under the authority of the Clean Air Act of 1963 and the 2005 Energy Policy Act.
Since its inception, ENERGY STAR and its partners have helped Americans save over 5 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, 4 billion metric-tons of greenhouse gases, and avoid $450 billion in energy costs.
ENERGY STAR has been a remarkable program during its nearly 30-year lifespan, and one of its greatest achievements are ENERGY STAR® Scores.
CBECS
For buildings, ENERGY STAR is used to benchmark building energy efficiency and use data. This data is compared between like buildings using the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS).
CBECS data is generated by periodic EPA surveys. CBECS samples multiple classes of buildings in the U.S., with the 2018 survey tallying over 16,000 buildings’ performances.
CBECS data is then used to calculate ENERGY STAR scores and provide ENERGY STAR certifications based on the 1–100-point scale. The national average in energy efficiency and performance is always 50, and to be ENERGY STAR certified, a building must receive a score of 75 or higher.
The first step to receiving an ENERGY STAR Score is benchmarking. Using the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, you can input emissions, water, and energy use data. After a year of benchmarking, your data is compared to the CBECS data set, and then given a score showing a building ranks on the national curve.
If a property’s score is lower than desired, don’t worry. The ENERGY STAR Portfolio manager will show exactly how much your building needs to save to hit your energy saving targets and improve your ENERGY STAR® Score. But what can you do with an ENERGY STAR Certification?
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
ENERGY STAR Certification requires a score of 75, putting the building in the 25th percentile for energy efficiency. This certification can lead to further certifications such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). An ENERGY STAR certification is the minimum for LEED certification, and it only goes up from there.
LEED currently has four tiers, which look at a building’s energy efficiency and sustainability in categories such as design, renovations, operations, and construction, among others. The first tier is LEED Certified, which is 40 – 49 points during certification. Silver is next at 50 – 59 points, then LEED Gold at 60 – 79.
The final and highest tier of LEED certification is Platinum for scores over 80 points. Platinum certification is given to only the highest performing buildings, and two excellent examples are 101 California and 1180 Peachtree.
101 California
101 California is a 48-story office skyscraper located in San Francisco, California. It was completed in 1982 and is sized at 1,250,000 square feet. It earned an ENERGY STAR® score of 91 in 2020, putting it in the 9th percentile for energy efficiency nationally. 101 California received its first LEED Platinum certification in 2014, receiving the highest LEED score in the world at 94 points.
101 California encourages sustainability through electric car charging stations, free e-waste recycling pick-up and boxes, responsible materials selection, water use reduction, and energy efficient operations and design.
This San Francisco landmark will begin receiving renovations to the lobbies, plaza, and amenities in the coming months. These renovations are expected to continue into 2023, and we are excited to see what new sustainable solutions they incorporate.
1180 Peachtree
1180 Peachtree is a 690,835 square-foot, 41-story office building located in Atlanta, Georgia. Also known as Symphony Tower, 1180 Peachtree was completed in 2006 and received its first LEED certification shortly after. It received an ENERGY STAR score of 90 in 2020, placing it in the 10th percentile of energy efficient buildings in the U.S.
Symphony Tower became LEED Platinum certified in 2015, and it was the first high-rise office building to receive LEED Silver in Core and Shell, as well as being the first in the southeastern U.S. to achieve LEED Gold certification in core and shell.
It has a unique water management system that uses captured rainwater and condensation to provide 100 percent of the building’s garden irrigation. Its enhanced indoor environmental air quality, green spaces, and energy efficient operations make 1180 Peachtree extremely sustainable. 101 California and 1180 Peachtree stand at the pinnacle of sustainable building design and operation, and theirs is an excellent example to follow, but don’t be dissuaded by the best of the best.
Through ENERGY STAR® and LEED programs, your building can increase its ENERGY STAR® Score and rise through the ranks of LEED over time. Neither of these buildings became LEED Platinum or ENERGY STAR® Certified overnight. It was a process, and that process starts one step at a time.
Sources
• Environmental Information Agency, CBECS | https:// www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/ reports.php
• 1180 Peachtree | http://www.1180peachtree. com/
• 101 California | https://101california.com/
• LEED | https://www.usgbc.org/leed
Building Certifications in CRE: An Enviornment of Excellence
By: Dusty Muck
In my home state of Georgia, daffodils shine bright yellow in the morning sun like little heads looking around announcing the beginning of spring until old dogwoods and azaleas explode into whites and pinks in mature stately landscapes, our country offers some of the most beautiful sights on the planet.
Keeping our country beautiful is not a passive pursuit. Actions must take place to sustain our planet and our property managers and owners, are always searching for new ways to protect our environment and reduce the impact the built environment has on our beautiful state.
One of these options is through third party programs where properties can become certified for green or healthy building practices. These third-party certifications identify companies practicing sustainability programs such as ENERGY STAR, LEED and BOMA 360 and creating healthier buildings for their prospective tenants utilizing principles from WELL and Fitwell.
Keeping our country beautiful is not a passive pursuit and building an environment of excellence is key in maintaining our beautiful nation.
Certified Excellence
“It gives people confidence in how the buildings operating that they are working at in a good environment where the ownership cares.” Explains Chris Lelle, portfolio chief engineer at Lincoln Properties. “They can be healthy, and they can be more productive in the building. It really does demonstrate that you are doing the right things in the building. We should always be good stewards of our environment and efficiency.”
“It’s not just a marketing thing for our leasing agents, but a lot of customers are really jumping on the sustainability bandwagon and even here very recently I’ve had several customers reach out to me because they’re implementing their own new sustainability practices and they’re looking at Portman to guide them in that direction,” says Michael Knox, chief engineer at Portman Management.
“They want to know what other customers are doing and the building, in terms of sustainability and how can they be a part of it?”
“I think the big thing that I’m seeing right now is the customer drive towards sustainability. The companies are becoming more involved and are looking for answers from management and building owners to see what they can do and what the property owners are going to allow them to do, within their own spaces at the properties. I think that is the big driver right now.” Knox continues.
Charlie Cichetti, CEO with Green Building Education Services (GBES) explains further, “The reason you go for an ENERGY STAR or LEED certification, for some of my clients, is to get that 3rd party validation that this is a Green Building and that is going to help us with our valuation.”
“it is going to force us to reduce our operating costs, it may be more attractive to certain tenants and I know a lot of Fortune 500 companies will only lease space in a Green Building.”
“While LEED is all about how your building’s impacts the environment, WELL certification is focused on your building’s impact on the people in the building.” Cichetti explains.
“For example, the lights in the room, if it is a LEED project, we want to make sure they are energy efficient, and we reduce our carbon emissions.”
“But if it is a WELL project, those lights can affect how we sleep tonight and circadian rhythms. A WELL certification ensures that this is a healthy space. It answers, is this a healthy building or not?” Asks Cichetti.
“WELL philosophy would have buildings lighting systems dim as the evening hours progress to naturally help the body prepare for winding down from the day and prepare for sleep.”
“Then you have BOMA 360, which compliments these other certifications. It is well rounded. BOMA 360 is a good place for a building to start in exploring different certifications.” Cichetti adds.
TEAM BUY-IN
While these certifications have become a big part of our built environment conversations in Atlanta, these designations are not as easy as signing off on a few improvements. It will take effort and most importantly, it will take a whole team doing their part.
Everyone will have a unique role to play from the building owners, managers, to the engineers, tenants, and the vendors who support management team at properties. “Everybody has to buy in to it. Everyone has to buy in to the goal. And part of what we have to do to achieve that goal is to fully understand the timeline for achieving the goal.” Knox explains.
“Everyone must be aware of what resources are we going to have to pull from to ensure we meet that deadline. It is a lot of information that has to be collected and everyone has to understand their role.”
“Teamwork is critical to making sure that any data and information is flowing in the right direction. There needs to be a gatekeeper. Somebody who collects all the data from all the different teams and forwards that information to the certification entity. Teamwork is essential in anything we do in Property Management is and this is no different.” Says Knox.
Lelle explains the importance of teamwork for achieving building certifications. “The certifications are really multi-faceted. They involve many disciplines to accomplish. Property management and engineering alike.”
“Property managers work directly with the janitorial companies, so you have to understand where they are getting their paper supplies, what type of paper supplies are you using.
That can help just as tracking your waste and understanding if they are recycling properly. They need to look at what chemicals are being utilized to clean and ensuring HEPA filters are being used on the vacuums.” Lelle says.
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Palisades Office Park has been ENERGY STAR Certified for 14 consecutive years, learn how on CRE Insight 365
Building an Environment of Excellence
Part of keeping our country beautiful comes from partnering with excellent product and service providers who can provide sustainable solutions to property managers and building engineers.
“Our vendors have to provide us with the products to meet these certification requirements. If they are green cleaning products; we need to make sure that [the products] follow the checklist of what chemicals are allowed and not allowed within the buildings.” Chris Lelle explains.
“Vendors need to be sourcing things from environmentally or sustainable sources that we are looking for the correct recycle products.”
“We need to be assured we are not just grabbing the cheapest stuff off the shelf just to save money. We are finding that mix of what is going to be affective and environmentally friendly across the board. And finally understanding the touch points they are cleaning around the building.” Lelle says.
“Meanwhile the Engineers will as a team, be looking at the sinks, all the flush valves, looking at the entire plumbing set up to understand usage. Are you continuously operating the HVAC systems in an efficient manner? Are you upgrading the lighting?” Says Lelle.
Charlie Cichetti agrees, “Teamwork is definitely even more than just the facility management of the property management team.”
“I think you should bring in outside vendors and consultants to coach and quarterback. Hey, here’s what we’re going to need to do. We need to do this, and this is to improve our green operation. Then we have to prove it to someone that actually doesn’t come to our building, so we have to have pictures and narratives and documentation.”
“So, to the Engineer: I need you to take weekly water meter readings for this period and to the landscaping vendor, we really need you to button up your monthly reporting. Are you composting the grass clippings? Are you using low decibel leaf blowers?” Cichetti continues.
Best Practices
“[Engineers] are doing many of these best practices and we have to display it to ownership and certification groups, so we all get credit and that’s going to help you and your company too.” Cichetti explains.
“I think you have to rally the team, realize that everybody’s going be responsible for a part of a green building or healthy building certification.”
“And then we like to have check-ins every two weeks. We ask how are we doing with those initiatives? And when we do finally submit [for certification] we celebrate as a team. I think that’s part of it. It is one thing to name who’s got what. Who’s being held accountable is another thing.” Cichetti adds an important reminder. “Don’t forget about the tenants. There’s a lot of optional points if we do recycling audits and we look at a tenant floor and we say, you know what, this tenant is a green champion.”
“You might find another that they’re throwing soda cans in the trash and don’t care. How do we coach them up? Ask them, are they buying ENERGY STAR rated monitors and computers?”
“And if they are, let’s get credit for it. If they are curious, could they buy some greener office supplies? Show them that there’s a relationship we have with an office supply company. Here’s their green Office supply catalog. You might want to take a look.” “Education is a major part of this recognition and plays a role in these certifications.” Cichetti adds.
Many of our properties here in Atlanta have already been through these certification processes, but what if you and your team have not? How do we determine what certification program is right for our building?
How does one begin the process of becoming certified? What do we need to know or look at to become certified or get ready for that process?
Energy, Water, and Air
Cichetti answers. “What I tell people is if you are wanting to go for official LEED EB (Existing Buildings) certification, there are three things that hold up most buildings: Energy, Water, and Air. So we want to make sure our ENERGY STAR score is at 75 or higher.”
“You have to be energy efficient at this point, and LEED won’t tell you that you have to switch your lights to LED. I It is up to the team to figure out the right combination to get to that mark.”
“When it comes to water, look at the current infrastructure. You may not need to swap out every toilet and urinal fixture to reduce water consumption but take a look what is going to get you there.” Cichetti says.
“With air, it is not just about installing MERV 13 Air Filters. It is about bringing in fresh air when the building is occupied and doing some testing out on the floor for other contaminants. If you can get the energy, water and air, the rest of it is green cleaning, green pest control, recycling and the other green best practices.” Says Cichetti.
Lelle, from an engineer’s perspective, adds, “LEED is really certifying what we are already doing in our buildings, you have to have a good preventive maintenance program in place, good filtration, such as MERV 13 Air Filters, cleaning the equipment, and make sure that your sensors and equipment are calibrated properly.”
“Ask questions. Are you bringing in the right amount of outside air in the building? If you set up pressurization controls in the building, make sure the building is operating efficiently. Engineers play a large part throughout the certification.”
“We are going through and physically counting the number of faucets throughout the building.” Explains Lelle. “We take note of the flow rate of the aerators on all of those faucets and take note of the gallons per flush on all of the toilets. We look at all of the water sources we are consuming.”
Lelle continued, “We take a look at design criteria on all of the design plans and look up what is my outside air filtration rate that I’m supposed to. We look to see the design parameters for the chillers, for the air handlers, for the cooling towers, so we can look at parts from an optimization standpoint.”
“We have to be able to dedicate the time to locating all of the information and learning and applying it to make sure all of the building systems and equipment are operating as they’re intended to or better.”
“One of the things I would do if your company has multiple properties,” adds Michael Knox, chief engineer at Portman Management. “If you’ve got other properties that have gone for LEED certifications, look at their application, what they submitted, see what they did and then look at your property and see if you can duplicate what they did to earn those same points.”
“No cost, low-cost solutions are always great. But there’s a lot of low hanging fruit in LEED certification, and a good option is to look at other projects that your company may have already accomplished and use that as a guide.”
Finding the Right Certification
But how does one know which certification is right for their building? It takes preparation in deciding what direction you will want to take your building such as BOMA360, WELL or LEED Silver, Gold, or Platinum.
It takes research to investigate current practices and the improvements that will need to occur to get a certification at a particular level.
“You have to ask the question to the ownership.” explains Lelle.
“What are the ownership goals? I’m currently in conversation with an owner about what certifications they may wish to have on their building.”
“I had to submit pricing for LEED certification. The owners in turn are talking to the tenants and understanding their level of interest. The tenants are then seeing if this fits their business models of what they need.” Lelle stated.
“In addition to owners and tenants, the others you will need buy in from are the leasing teams. Leasing agents will know if that is something that is being asked for in the market. If your market does not attach value these certifications, it may not be worthwhile to certify. However, you can still follow all the steps and best practices for the certification itself.” Lelle explains.
“These sustainability measures will save money and investing in tenant and staff health through WELL certification will help retain those tenants. It’s give and take based on the market. You still don’t give up your quality of what you’re doing, you just don’t do the certification in that case.” Says Lelle.
Over the last few years, our industry has gone through unprecedented times, so in a post pandemic world, one must wonder what role certifications play now? Charlie answered this for me:
The Value of Building Certifications
“On the talent side, right, it is a competitive job market right now. If people are being asked to come in to work, at least a few days a week, in this post-pandemic Zoom world, folks are going to be a little more picky.” Says Cichetti.
“They can find a career where their building is a green office. They want it to be a healthy place to work. They want their office to be incredible. They are asking themselves; why would I come in and go sit in a cubicle?” Explains Cichetti.
“From a talent perspective, if I am an employer, I’ve got to shout out: “Hey, we’re going to have a hybrid work policy. Here are our amenities. This is a green office. This is a healthy office. Here is the proof.”
“As far as rent, there is a lot of things colliding on that front. In general, you know some of the premier league properties can still get pretty nice rent premiums. Between the valuation of the building and the rent formula, I think it is still clear [certified] buildings drive a premium for real estate investors.”
Finding the certification that is right for your building helps create a more sustainable and healthier built environment. Certifications, and the best practices that go into them, are a great way to keep Georgia, and your own state, beautiful. LEED, ENERGY STAR, BOMA 360, Fitwell, and WELL all have their benefits.
Getting tenants, engineers, managers, and ownership engaged and onboard for these improvements and changes will help ensure these certifications are put to good use so the next generation can experience the shining daffodils, old dogwoods, exploding azaleas, and the rest of the stately American landscape we all know and love.
About the Author
Dusty Muck is an Account Manager for Rubbermaid Commercial Products, providing waste/ recycling, cleaning, material handling, and washroom solutions to business in Georgia. In addition to his work with Insight, he works as Ambassador to new BOMA Members and serves on the BOMA Georgia Foundation Board, and the BOMA Government Affairs Committee, assisting strategies on legislative and regulatory matters affecting the commercial real estate industry in Georgia.
