Recently signed by San Francisco’s mayor, Edwin Lee, the Existing Commercial Building Energy Performance Ordinance will require non-residential buildings to make annual energy-usage reports available to the public. In addition, the new city code mandates that buildings over 10,000 sq ft. complete an energy efficiency audit every five years.
"San Francisco needs to increase the energy and resource efficiency of existing buildings if we are going to meet our aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets," states Lee. "This new green building code will educate building owners about what they need to do to save energy and money and boost our local green economy."
The city's climate action plan — adopted in 2002 — aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2012.