EPA Announces Top-Performing Buildings

On Tuesday, Feb. 12, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the latest 1,400 buildings nationwide that have earned the ENERGY STAR designation for exceptional management of their energy use, saving a cumulative $425 million in energy costs and avoiding 6.4 billion pounds in CO₂ emissions.

The 1,400 buildings qualifying for the ENERGY STAR in 2007 make up the largest number of buildings ever to qualify in one year. More than 4,000 buildings nationwide have earned the label. As energy costs rise and interest in fighting global warming increases, more commercial facilities than ever before are using ENERGY STAR to benchmark and improve their energy performance.

EPA is also highlighting the top five states with the largest number of commercial buildings earning the ENERGY STAR:

1) California
2) Texas
3) North Carolina
4) Virginia
5) Colorado

Facts about ENERGY STAR Buildings

More than 4,000 top-performing commercial buildings and manufacturing plants have earned the ENERGY STAR label, including over 1,400 in 2007 alone. These facilities save nearly $1.5 billion annually in lower energy bills and prevent more than 25 billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, equal to the emissions from the electricity use of over 1.5 million American homes for a year.
Commercial and industrial buildings account for half of all eU.S. nergy consumption at a cost of over $200 billion per year - more than any other sector of the economy. The combined number of commercial buildings (4.8 million) and industrial facilities (350,000) in the United States is more than 5 million.
Buildings that earn the ENERGY STAR use about 35-percent less energy than average buildings.
The combined annual energy costs for U.S. commercial buildings ($107.9 billion) and industrial facilities ($94.4 billion) is $202.3 billion.
Thirty (30) percent of the energy used in buildings is used inefficiently or unnecessarily.
The combined percentage of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions generated by commercial buildings (17 percent) and industrial facilities (28 percent) is 45 percent.
$20 billion would be saved if the energy efficiency of commercial and industrial buildings improved by 10 percent.
The amount of greenhouse-gas emissions that would be reduced if the energy efficiency of commercial and industrial buildings improved by 10 percent would be equal to about 30 million vehicles.