New York City has passed significant new legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing government, commercial and residential buildings in New York City.

The six-point Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, introduced on Earth Day and enacted as part of PlaNYC, includes four bills that will dramatically reduce the City’s energy usage, saving consumers $700 million annually in energy costs, while creating 17,880 jobs and reducing New York City’s carbon footprint.

In addition to the four pieces of legislation, the six-point plan includes two PlaNYC programs that will train workers for the new construction-related jobs that will be created, and help finance energy-saving improvements using $16 million in federal stimulus funding.

While New York currently has the lowest per capita carbon footprint of any major city in America, about 80% of its carbon footprint comes from energy consumption by its more than 1 million buildings. As 85% of the buildings that exist today will be in use in 2030, increasing efficiency in existing buildings is critical to meeting the PlaNYC goal of a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Once implemented, the legislation will reduce citywide greenhouse gas emissions by 4.75%, the largest reduction achieved by a single program.

The four bills, which passed in December 2009, include:

Int. No. 973-A: Legislation that requires large commercial buildings (over 50,000 square feet) to upgrade their lighting, and also sub-meter tenant spaces over 10,000 square feet;

Int. No. 564-A: Legislation that creates a New York City Energy Code that existing buildings will have to meet whenever they make renovations (closing the loophole that allows buildings to perpetuate non-compliant systems if they perform renovations on less than half of a given building system);

Int. No. 476-A: Legislation that requires large buildings owners to make an annual benchmark analysis of energy consumption so that owners, tenants, and potential tenants can compare buildings’ energy consumption; and

Int. No. 967-A: Legislation that requires large private buildings to conduct energy audits once every decade and implement energy efficient maintenance practices. Also, all city-owned buildings over 10,000 sq ft will be required to conduct audits and complete energy retrofits that pay for themselves within 7-years.

In addition to the legislation, the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan includes two other initiatives: A workforce development working group of real estate, labor, and others that will identify the skills needed and ensure that sufficient training opportunities exist to fill the estimated 17,880 construction and building-related jobs the legislation will create.

Check out this video describing the new legislation here.

Craig DiLouie

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