EPA's ENERGY STAR Program in the Commercial and Industrial Sectors (Renewal)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created ENERGY STAR as a voluntary program to help businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency. The program focuses on reducing utility-generated emissions by reducing the demand for energy. In 1991, EPA launched the Green Lights program to encourage corporations, state and local governments, colleges and universities, and other organizations to adopt energy-efficient lighting as a profitable means of preventing pollution and improving lighting quality. Since then, EPA has rolled Green Lights into ENERGY STAR for the commercial and industrial sectors and expanded ENERGY STAR to encompass organization-wide energy performance improvement, such as building technology upgrades, product purchasing initiatives, and employee training. At the same time, EPA has streamlined the reporting requirements of ENERGY STAR and focused on providing recognition incentives for improvements (e.g., ENERGY STAR Awards program). EPA also makes tools and resources available over the web to help the public overcome the barriers to evaluating their energy performance and investing in profitable improvements. For several reasons, the publics participation in the ENERGY STAR program for commercial and industrial sectors has continued to increase over the past several years, and EPA expects their participation to rise even more in the coming years. For example, a growing number of state and local governments are leveraging ENERGY STAR as a way for the public to respond to rising energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions, including mandatory energy benchmarking and disclosure laws that require buildings within their jurisdiction to use EPAs ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. As of the end of 2018, 29 local governments and three states rely on Portfolio Manager as the foundation for their energy benchmarking and transparency policies. Participation in ENERGY STAR has also risen dramatically because of the efforts of trade associations, utilities, and third-party providers in promoting the program to the public. As participation has increased, EPA has taken measures to reduce the burden on participants that take advantage of the benefits of ENERGY STAR. For example, EPA has expanded Portfolio Manager Web Services, which is one of several benchmarking data-entry methods available to users. Because Web Services integrates automated data collection and entry, it offers significant time-saving advantages over the other methods. Over many years, EPA has seen a growing trend of users opting for Web Services and thereby realizing these savings. In 2009, 41% of all benchmarks were performed using Web Services. By 2017, this had grown to 73%. In addition to expanding Web Services, the Agency has continued to enhance other features of Portfolio Manager, allowing participants to enter and retrieve information more quickly. Furthermore, EPA is always looking for ways to reduce burden and in recent years has introduced changes to the requirements for certification that reduce both labor and cost for applicants, without impacting the integrity of the ENERGY STAR certification. In 2017, the ENERGY STAR program for commercial buildings helped businesses and organizations save 160 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, avoid $9 billion in energy costs, and protect the climate by achieving 110 million metric tons of greenhouse gas reductions. On average, ENERGY STAR certified buildings use 35% less energy than typical buildings nationwide. In 2017, the ENERGY STAR program for industrial plants helped businesses save 34 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, avoid $3 billion in energy costs, and protect the climate by achieving 40 million metric tons of greenhouse gas reductions.

The latest form for EPA's ENERGY STAR Program in the Commercial and Industrial Sectors (Renewal) expires 2024-01-31 and can be found here.

ENERGY STAR Program in the Commercial and Industrial Sectors - Private Sector Entities

Federal Enterprise Architecture: Environmental Management - Pollution Prevention and Control

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