Energy Star has proven indispensable for advancing energy efficiency throughout the United States. Yet drastic budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration puts its very existence in jeopardy. In short, every dollar in federal investments. The program helped over 330,000 existing buildings last year, making up almost 25% of all commercial building floorspace in the entire country. Removing it would be disastrous for the commercial real estate industry and others.
The Energy Star program has been at the forefront of these benchmarking efforts. It additionally pushes for state and local transparency policies for dozens of states and localities. Seven states and 48 local jurisdictions are currently active participants in Energy Star. They use it as part of their strategies to track and increase energy efficiency. In addition, two Canadian provinces have seized upon the program to further their own energy management initiatives.
In 2022, Energy Star helped over 8,800 commercial buildings achieve its coveted label. This remarkable accomplishment underscores the program’s important contribution to advancing energy-efficient practices. The benefits are big bucks! Last year alone, Energy Star saved Americans more than $2.2 billion while avoiding more than 5.7 million metric tons of emissions. According to Nicole Upano, the director of public policy for the National Apartment Association (NAA), “It’s a $32 million program for the government, but it provides, in terms of return on investment — it’s huge.”
The loss of Energy Star would not only spell the end of one of the most popular and effective government managed initiative. It would further break the common shared energy data network that allows landlords to compare with state and municipal governments adapting that same energy asset. Leia de Guzman, co-founder of Cambio, emphasized the importance of this data-sharing infrastructure: “There is a potential that they would defund the entire software platform. But as long as the system is there in the background—it’s embedded in our applications—this data can be captured.
Without this data, property owners would find it nearly impossible to retrofit properties in a targeted and efficient manner. De Guzman added, “If you don’t have the data, you then don’t have any means to understand how to deploy retrofit initiatives across your building.” The loss of Energy Star could therefore impede progress toward more sustainable building practices and reduce overall energy efficiency in commercial real estate.
Energy Star’s impact has stretched beyond commercial buildings, deeply shaping residential construction as well. More importantly, the program’s detailed guidelines have been a key driver of energy-efficiency standards for newly constructed homes. Last year, more than 2,500 independent builders, developers, and manufactured housing firms participated in the Energy Star Residential New Construction program. Together, they helped create hundreds of billions of dollars in savings for consumers and businesses.
The possible transfer of management of Energy Star to an outside organization is another major point of concern that has stakeholders worried. Upano cautioned against the long-term impacts of making this change. Otherwise, it would lead to a fee-based system that increases user costs and jeopardizes the program’s integrity. “It provides hundreds of billions of dollars of savings for consumers and businesses in its current form,” she explained. “If it were to be managed by an external company, that might result in a fee-based system that would increase the cost to use this program.”
As conversations about budget cuts loom, a coalition of stakeholders is appearing in favor of saving Energy Star. Once continued, the program has become an indispensable policy cornerstone of energy policy across nearly every jurisdiction. Its disappearance would have a dramatic impact on most individual building owners. Beyond that, though, it would poison broader joint efforts to move toward more sustainable and efficient development patterns.
Cambio enables building owners and managers to verify their current Energy Star submissions. This simple, proactive step protects against the risk of all that data evaporating. This initiative extends beyond the competition and highlights the emerging and urgent need for continuity in energy management practices and data continuity.