SERVICES » SUSTAINABILITY

ENERGY STAR Benchmarking and Certification

Maximum Energy Professionals “MEP” has assisted well over 4,000 applications with ENERGY STAR Certification and Benchmarking since 2001. MEP assists in between 200-300 commercial building customers per year with the ENERGY STAR process. Our Principal Engineer, Glenn Tanner, was one of the first ENERGY STAR PE’s in the country, and has personally certified and benchmarked in excess of 3.5 Billion square feet, making him a national ENERGY STAR expert. We are an ENERGY STAR Elite Partner, and are excited to have been in the national Top 11 companies for 2014 with over 160 customer buildings certified. We have assisted more than 240 buildings with ENERGY STAR award certification in 2015, achieving almost 50% growth in the ENERGY STAR award category for our customers last year! In addition, we are thrilled to have been named 2016 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for outstanding service to our ENERGY STAR customers!

MEP believes businesses benefit financially by continually improving their management of energy resources, and the environment benefits from reduced levels of related pollution. We are proud to offer services and products that can assist businesses who have committed to the goals of ENERGY STAR. We are experts in helping our single building and portfolio customers achieve the highest and most accurate ENERGY STAR scores possible by accurately assessing their properties and assigning the appropriate values to their buildings’ interior and parking areas. We find that accurate ENERGY STAR scores are the perfect starting point for our customers’ future decisions regarding all of their energy efficiency and energy conservation decisions, including LEED certification and future energy conservation design projects.

We have developed a turn-key team approach within our office that allows us to assist our customers during each and every step of the ENERGY STAR process, from our detailed customer database that allows us to keep careful track and provide timely reminders of the annual ENERGY STAR process, to utility data management, to site consultations and completion of ENERGY STAR submittals including the stamp and signature of our expert P.E. Our excellent ENERGY STAR track record has afforded us repeat and referral business from a wide range of single building and portfolio customers.

ENERGY STAR BACKGROUND

The EPA introduced the ENERGY STAR program in 1992 as a voluntary labeling program designed to promote energy efficient products like computers and monitors, and has expanded rapidly to include everything from major appliances to whole commercial buildings. The ENERGY STAR trend has been driven by accelerating interest in reducing energy consumption and environmental impact and an increasing number of regulations requiring better transparency for consumers. Companies and building owners realize that their customers prefer the ENERGY STAR label because it indicates a lower cost of operation, which helps to keep them competitive in a competitive world.

ENERGY STAR Benefits

  • ENERGY STAR award certification indicates a top performing building in energy use, indoor air quality and tenant comfort.

  • Sophisticated lessees now prefer ENERGY STAR labeled buildings and will often pay premium rents over non-ENERGY STAR buildings so it offers a competitive edge in the marketplace.

  • Large institutional and governmental lessees often require an ENERGY STAR label as a condition of lease, and it benefits building owners to not eliminate potential tenants by forgoing the ENERGY STAR process.

  • The ENERGY STAR score is the single largest point award for USGBC LEED certification, and can translate to as many as 15 LEED points, saving the customer money on potentially costly LEED point improvements that might not be necessary if the ENERGY STAR is scored properly.

  • ENERGY STAR helps building managers and owners to quickly and easily track their energy history and trends so they can take concerted steps to reduce energy consumption, which is particularly important because U.S. buildings consume more than 60 % of all energy, some of it wasted.

  • ENERGY STAR labeling can help building managers and owners save money on utility costs, reduce their impact on the environment, quantify the impact of operational improvements, and increase their property values.

Future of ENERGY STAR

ENERGY STAR for commercial buildings is here to stay and can be a powerful tool to market to tenants and potential investors to demonstrate your building’s superior energy efficiency. ENERGY STAR certification has been shown to translate into a three percent premium in rental value and a sixteen percent increase in sales price for commercial buildings. Since ENERGY STAR has become so successful, it is now being incorporated as the standard yard stick by which buildings are measured for demanding standards such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) 2009.

In some cities and states, ENERGY STAR is now a requirement. In New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and San Francisco local laws require buildings to track and report utility usage annually using the ENERGY STAR Program. In San Francisco, buildings with ENERGY STAR certification for three out of the past five years are considered to be ‘high performing’ and are exempted from energy audits that are required by the City of San Francisco Dept of Environment every five years. In California, AB1103 requires non-residential buildings to track and report energy utility usage using the ENERGY STAR program in the event of a sale, finance, refinance or lease of the entire building beginning January 2014. In Denver, Colorado, local law requires that new construction and major renovations of existing and future city-owned and operated buildings be designed to earn ENERGY STAR certification. The ENERGY STAR trend for commercial buildings is growing, with more and more buildings receiving ENERGY STAR certification each year in cities and states across the United States.