BOMA Canada is preparing for the worst if the Energy Star program in the U.S. is shut down by a proposed law, which could impact the tool it uses to inform its green building certification.

The Toronto-based commercial real estate industry organization runs the BOMA BEST Sustainable program for existing buildings that operate efficiently and produce less carbon than the industry standard.

Building owners, property managers and consultants working to certify buildings under BOMA BEST Sustainable use the Energy Star Portfolio Manager, a tool that assesses a building’s energy, water use and carbon performance, and identify areas for improvement.

But Portfolio Manager could be on the chopping block if a budget bill circulating in the U.S. federal legislature that proposes drastically shrinking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) becomes law. The bill would eliminate Energy Star.

BOMA Canada is telling its members to prepare for the possibility of Portfolio Manager being axed and is looking for alternative software, Maryluz Velasco, associate director of standards at BOMA Canada, said in an interview with Sustainable Biz Canada.

“We’re looking at all of the potential avenues, so that should there be any transition it will be as seamless as possible,” she said.

Business as usual, for now

Famous for its stickers on home appliances, Energy Star is a program that sets energy efficiency standards not just for ovens and refrigerators, but buildings. It has been used in Canada since 2001 in partnership with the EPA.

In its 2022 annual report (the latest to date), Energy Star Canada says the standard for products helped avoid 3.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 alone. Also for that year, over 3,500 new homes were certified by Energy Star, totalling over 112,000 homes to date.

To measure performance toward the BOMA BEST Sustainable certification program, Portfolio Manager is used by BOMA Canada to figure out metrics such as the intensity of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions per building, Velasco explained.

The Energy Star program for appliances is under the gravest threat, she explained, and Portfolio Manager is potentially on the line. Though the uncertainty is high, it is business as usual for BOMA Canada, she said, as the tool has yet to be shut down. 

Velasco encourage people to continue to input data into Portfolio Manager, and BOMA Canada said the BOMA BEST Sustainable certification process continues.

How BOMA Canada is readying for disruption

If the budget bill is passed and signed into law, changes that may affect Portfolio Manager could take place as early as Oct. 1, according to BOMA Canada. If Portfolio Manager is shut down, it would disrupt the organizations in Canada starting their BOMA BEST applications, Velasco said.

In preparation, BOMA Canada is in contact with Natural Resources Canada to develop a solution. Velasco said the federal agency is figuring out if it has the capacity to take on the building management tool for Canada.

BOMA Canada is also assessing whether it could switch to alternative platforms, such as a public benchmark platform or private software.

Velasco is optimistic the building industry will find a way forward if Portfolio Manager is abolished, despite the heavy blow.

Portfolio Manager has been a “great platform for setting an even playing field in terms of comparing. It’s a very easy platform to use, it’s well-known, it has already a lot of data in it,” she said. While a future tool may not have as much centralized data, Velasco is sure “the industry as a whole will figure out how to pivot.”

BOMA Canada recommends users of Portfolio Manager be ready to export and save their historical building data, ensure the current data is accurate and complete to inform future reporting, and consult with a sustainability team or service provider to develop a data continuity strategy aligned with BOMA BEST’s requirements.