With the Senate set to review Obama’s stimulus plan this week, I am waiting with hopeful anticipation of the Senate version followed by the final version hashed out in conference committee which will then be voted on again in each chamber of congress. It is then that we will know the final version of the stimulus.
However, understanding the House version of the bill and looking at the commercial buildings industry, it is reasonable to expect that this industry is in for significant changes in the year ahead. As GreenerBuildings succinctly wrote up, it is not out of the question that the industry will seek a bail-out to remain viable in 2009. If this occurred, the government mandate may go beyond what the stimulus is calling for–energy efficiency in commercial buildings–into more specifics including the mandate that any building receiving federal dollars must benchmark itself to the EPA’s ENERGYSTAR Portfolio Manager and/or carry out a building energy audit and address any identified issues.
In any case (and this is a blatant plug for my company) it would benefit any large owner or user of commercial office space to sign-on to Sustainability Roundtable’s (www.sustainround.com) best practices sharing research services which includes twice-annual regulatory updates. Our services fit intuitively with carrying out energy efficiency retrofits and identifying the best practices developed by leaders in the industry.
