Beat Blog
Last week the Home Energy Score team attended the 2016 ACI National Home Performance Conference in Austin, Texas. Among the sessions, meetings, and networking, the U.S. Department of Energy team took the opportunity to recognize some of its outstanding partners. Joan Glickman, Home Energy…
How often do professionals from the education, entertainment, healthcare, hospitality, retail and tech sectors get together AND talk about energy and climate change? If it’s in the city of Atlanta, the answer is at least once a month. That’s because in 2011 Atlanta was one of the first cities to…
Each month we recap the most viewed solutions shared by Better Buildings partners. Check out March's Top-10 solutions below. 1. Energy Data Access: Blueprint for Action ToolkitThe Better Buildings Energy Data Accelerator was a two-year partnership with cities and utilities…
TIAA, one of the first commercial real estate partners to step up to the Better Buildings Challenge in 2011, has been demonstrating their energy and water efficiency leadership ever since.
Most recently, TIAA is sharing three new energy and water solutions, bringing its total solutions…
Just two weeks ago the U.S. Department of Transportation's Secretary Anthony Foxx announced at the South by Southwest conference (SXSW), the seven finalist cities vying for a single award of up to $40 million to help define what it means to be a "Smart City" and become the first city to fully…
By now, most companies understand that investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and “going green” can provide a variety of benefits to overall business operations. However, securing the means to do so can still be quite difficult as time, expertise, and especially budget…
Launched in 2011 with a focus on the industrial and commercial sectors, the Better Buildings Challenge expanded two years ago to include multifamily housing, announcing in December 2013, that over 50 partners (public housing authorities, nonprofit housing providers, and market-rate developers…
The Department of Energy welcomed L'Oréal USA to the Better Buildings, Better Plants Program (Better Plants) and it is a beautiful partnership. As the nation’s largest cosmetics manufacturer, L'Oréal is pledging to cut energy intensity by 25% across its five manufacturing plants in joining the…
Douglas County School District (DCSD) is the sixth largest district in the State of Nevada serving over 6,000 students across 11 schools. The district implemented a multi-pronged financing approach to implement energy savings measures to address its aging school facilities, increasing utility costs…
Commercial office buildings are a great target for efficiency projects due to their structured occupancy schedules and high energy intensity. Proposals that make a strong fiscal case on paper, however, oftentimes fail to reach execution due to the ‘split incentive’ that exists among the…
Each month we recap the most viewed solutions shared by Better Buildings partners. Check out February's Top-10 solutions below.
1. King County, WA Implementation Model: Fund to Reduce Energy Use (FRED)
Energy and water efficiency projects often compete with other priorities for limited…
For five years, the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP) releases its annual Regional Roundup of Energy Efficiency Policy. The Regional Roundup provides an update on state progress in energy efficiency policies and programs in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region, as well as trends and…
Better Buildings Challenge partner Shari’s Café and Pies, a 24 hour, full service restaurant chain located in the Pacific Northwest, recently became the first full service restaurant to join the Better Buildings Challenge, committing to a 20% reduction in energy intensity by 2025 across nearly 400,…
Last week, we traveled to Florida where we met with three Better Buildings Challenge partners: the cities of West Palm Beach and Orlando, and commercial real estate developer Parkway Properties.
As Maria T. Vargas, director of the Better Buildings Challenge participated in tours of…
Food service organizations face unique energy benchmarking challenges, particularly as energy use can frequently be more closely correlated to the quantity of food served than to the size of the restaurant. Nevertheless, the basics of benchmarking closely parallel those for other sectors, with a…
As the Better Buildings Challenge has made evident, the energy efficiency community is a unique breed. Sometimes it seems like we’re speaking our own language.
We have our own blogs, our own podcasts and of course our own goals, metrics and rules of the road for how we get there.
And now we…
Every year the Department of Energy releases an annual Winter Progress Update highlighting programmatic activities and partner successes of the Better Buildings Alliance. The 2016 Winter Progress Update and Progress Update Infographic lauds the accomplishments of more than 200 partners,…
For local governments, energy and water efficiency projects are often in direct competition with other priorities for limited financing. King County, WA, however, found a way to provide access to funding for meeting its energy reduction goals without competition with or delay to other critical…
The City of Boston maintains 24 neighborhood libraries, with the Central Library in Copley Square serving the main headquarters. Referred to by architect Charles Follen McKim as the "palace for the people,” the facility has achieved a 25% reduction in energy consumption by upgrading its energy…
When Hilton Worldwide was approached to participate in the Department of Energy’s first-ever Better Buildings Challenge SWAP, we were excited, then the questions hit us.
Our systems are so different, how will they know what to look for?
What will they say?
How will metrics stack up?
As…