In 2021, the City of Boston released BERDO 2.0, an update to the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance, outlining new requirements for property owners to disclose their buildings’ impact on the environment. The ordinance requires large buildings over 35,000 SF of floor space to be net-zero compliant by 2050 and includes existing building stock. Among the changes within the ordinance includes the addition of a window-to-wall ratio, standards for air leakage, as well as new standards for energy usage.

“Buildings account for nearly 70% of greenhouse gas emissions in Boston,” said the City of Boston in a release. “The 2021 amendment to BERDO gives the City authority to set emissions standards for large existing buildings. The emissions standards will decrease over time, with all buildings achieving net zero emissions by 2050.”

In response, BLDUP hosted BERDO 2.0: Challenges Facing New & Existing Buildings to Meet Tightening Energy Codes, a premier networking event that took an in-depth look at the changes in energy efficiency building codes in Massachusetts. The event was sponsored by ELM Consulting, Sterling Construction, View Inc, & Hemenway Construction. The panel of industry leaders discussed the new Buildings Efficient Reduction Disclosure Ordinance and how the real estate industry is responding. 

The panelists who spoke at BLDUP’s networking event included:

Kate VanHeusen, Senior Associate Sasaki

Josh Billings, VP of Construction HYM Investment Group

Susan Knack-Brown, Senior Principal SGH

Ben Meyer, VP of Sustainability BXP

Jessica Morris, Assistant VP Public Affairs Benchmark Strategies

Jeff Cammuso, Director of Business Development Shawmut Construction & Development

John Forrester, VP RE Services, Energy, & Sustainability The RMR Group

“My goal as the chief of staff for (Boston City Councilor) Matt O’Malley was to guide it through the legislation process,” said Jessica Morris of Benchmark Strategies who served at Boston City Hall guiding the BERDO legislation. “The process included working with industry leaders and community organizations, and prior to getting to the city council, there was a year and a half of consulting and dialogue with environmental justice organizations.”

While new construction within the city will meet the standards set by legislation, existing building stock will have to conform to the requirements within a short timeline, by 2050. Significant challenges face property owners who will have to retrofit their properties properly to meet the new compliance requirements.

“In new construction, we know pretty well what we’re doing, but from an existing envelope standpoint it can be challenging. Air barrier standards - critical to enclosure performance - didn’t come about until 2010-2012,” said panelist Susan Knack-Brown, Senior Principal at SGH. “Most of our building stock doesn’t have air barrier standards so like all things you have to do an audit and from an enclosure standpoint you have to know what your building is. In particular, Air leakage is a huge part of that. There is a linear return in fixing air leakage in energy savings while there are diminishing returns in insulation.”

While the goals set by BERDO 2.0 may seem lofty, engineers and architectural firms are very familiar with these standards and have had the technology necessary to facilitate these changes available for some time. “Carbon Neutrality by 2050 is achievable and has never been a question of technical solutions,” said Josh Billings, VP of Construction at the HYM Investment Group. “We’ve known how to design these buildings for a long time. It’s been a political challenge and perception challenge in the market which have both spoken to the need for education in the tenant base, what kind of buildings we should expect going forward.”

“We have a lot of technologies we can utilize in smarter ways than we’ve had to in the past. Things like window-wall ratios that have impacts on leasing, floor layouts, what the building massing starts to look like, user comfort, access to outdoor space, all need to be rethought in the City of Boston,” added Kate VanHeusen, Senior Associate at Sasaki.

As for leveraging the technologies to meet these new standards, investment will be needed to implement what already exists into building systems as well as create new technologies that will address the challenges of tomorrow.

“Property technologies will go a long way with how we consume energy,” said John Forrester, VP RE Services, Energy, & Sustainability The RMR Group. “We identified standardizing building automation systems with technologies, we could automate these systems across the country. We currently have 12 million square feet across 65 buildings connected to our personal network. That gives us operational insight for all those properties and allows the same commissioning and review efforts to scale across all cities to meet these emissions targets as well as corporate targets. Property technologies that can scale, evolve and standardize are something that’s very important to us.”

“We definitely need more investment in the grid, storage, and transmission for renewable development,” said Ben Meyer, VP of Sustainability at Boston Properties (BXP). “We have a huge interconnection queue of projects in this country that are sitting idle. Even in Boston, you submit an application and are waiting up to a year for approval; that’s an issue. I think there’s a huge opportunity for heat pumps that will help us transition from gas to renewable energy and help us recover heat lost in cooling towers. Shifting heat can lead to massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the winter, so I’m very interested in that technology today.”

Just as important as the innovative technologies developed, implementation will be needed to maximize building efficiency. 

“We design and implement these unbelievable buildings with complicated systems and we have an 8-hour training session with a facilities person for maybe three months, and you’ll have a “Swiss watch” where property managers don’t know how to use all the bells and whistles,” said Jeff Cammuso, Director of Business Development at Shawmut Construction & Development. “If we want to maximize the efficiency in these buildings, we need to spend more time on the back end when we turn these buildings over so everyone knows how to utilize the systems to the fullest of their ability.”

Following the panel discussion, BLDUP hosted a 2-hour open-floor networking event, fostering discussion between industry leaders and the audience. 

“2050 is around the corner, it’s right there,” said BLDUP Vice President and panel moderator Alex Argento. “We have some of the best thought leaders in the room that are addressing how to move forward and what comes next.”

While the reporting and verification deadline for BERDO 2.0 fell on June 15th, the City has announced a 6th-month extension, with the new deadline scheduled for December 15th, 2022. 

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