In 2015, Kansas City passed a local energy benchmarking ordinance with the goal of reducing energy bills by almost $400 million and generating around 1,000 jobs by 2030. The Kansas City Energy Empowerment Ordinance was designed to bring awareness to excessive levels of energy and water use by buildings in the greater Kansas City area, which currently account for 70 percent of total energy use. City Energy Project, a national initiative from the Institute for Market Transformation and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to improve buildings energy efficiency, supports local initiatives like the Kansas City Energy Project across the country in cities like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles.
“Kansas City is becoming the leader in energy efficiency for the Heartland. This city knows that tackling climate pollution from its largest source not only means public health and environmental benefits, but economic benefits as well. This new legislation will help building owners reduce their operational costs and combat health-harming pollution, all while adding millions to the city’s economy and creating more than a thousand local jobs.”
Melissa Wright, Director of the City Energy Project at NRDC
What is the Kansas City Energy Empowerment Ordinance?
The Kansas City Energy Empowerment Ordinance requires owners of existing municipal, commercial and residential buildings 50,000 square feet or greater located within the Kansas City, Missouri municipality to submit energy and water consumption to the city. The ordinance uses benchmarking programs to measure building energy and water consumption over time and learn how to improve from the data collected with these measurements. Cooperating building owners are required to track whole-building energy and water use and submit it to the city on an annual basis using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s EnergyStar Portfolio Manager tool.
EnergyStar is a certification tool that allows building managers or owners to verify that their building is up to date with its required energy efficiency standards. Once you have filled out the EnergyStar Portfolio Manager, you will receive a score which dictates whether or not your building meets the requirements and is therefore able to be certified. The higher the EnergyStar score correlates to a higher level of operating efficiency at your building.
Information on when and if to comply with the Kansas City Energy Empowerment Ordinance are available on Kansas City’s website. This page also outlines steps for compliance and how to use the EnergyStar Portfolio Manager tool.
Why should you comply?
Along with the positive environmental impact, there are numerous benefits both for the community and your business when you comply with the Kansas City Energy Empowerment Ordinance. As far as the community impact, complying with this ordinance will create 1,000 jobs and substantially reduce climate-changing and harmful air pollution.
Information collected through the EnergyStar Portfolio Manager tool will not only be an asset to the renewable energy market and the Kansas City community overall, but also to individual businesses. This information will point out exactly what areas need to be improved for lowering wast levels and utility bills. Complying with this ordinance will allow your building to become more sustainable and cheaper to operate. There also may be fines for non-complying buildings.
Interested in becoming EnergyStar Certified?
If your building does not meet an EnergyStar score that high enough, meaning it does not meet the requirements for EnergyStar certified, EnergyLink can help. Our team will assist you with Portfolio Manager and create a custom proposal to suggest energy improvements or other actions that can be taken to improve your score. When working with our team, you will speak with the same team member throughout the entire process to ensure proper oversight. Speak with an EnergyLink team member at (866) 218-0830 or click the button below to start the process.
