4 Steps to Get Ready for Building Energy Performance Standards (BOMA 2025)

Do you own or manage property in an area affected by building energy performance standards (BEPS)? If you don’t now, you may soon. As these policies grow across the U.S., it’s crucial to understand what you’d do if you’re faced with complying with one of these policies. Each one is different, but you can apply the same four-step roadmap to all of them, explained Colin Curzi, head of building policy for RE Tech Advisors, during her session at the 2025 BOMA International Conference & Expo in Boston.

What is a Building Energy Performance Standard?

Also known as a building performance standard (BPS), these policies are different from other jurisdictions’ requirements for benchmarking or energy audits. A building energy performance standard contains three key elements that distinguish it from other regulations:

1. They’re prescriptive. The jurisdiction adopting the BEPS will set a target based on past benchmarking data. Every building has to comply with this target. Many of them are aiming for net zero energy or carbon by 2050.
2. They’re prolonged. If you’re not at the target now, you need to get there soon.
3. They involve payment for compliance. If you don’t comply, you will be fined. The fines vary by jurisdiction, but all are intended to incentivize compliance. The fines can become liens on the property and strain the asset, Curzi added.

“If you’re a portfolio company and you’re tracking buildings across the country, it’s a mess in a hurry,” Curzi explained. “Different property types apply, there’s a different timeline for compliance, a different fee structure, and different performance metrics.”

The existence of building energy performance standards changes the way owners and managers prioritize investment in their assets, Curzi added. Previously, a firm might have aimed to decarbonize its portfolio and targeted a larger building or one with dirty power or a high energy use intensity (EUI). Now it now has to consider which buildings in its portfolio are about to be impacted by substantial BPS fines.

Step 1: Align Your Stakeholders

The first thing you need to do if you’re about to be impacted by these standards—or if you’ve already received a letter notifying you that you’re subject to a BEPS—is to get everyone on the same page. Perhaps the building or fund owners have insights into what needs to happen. Your bill pay provider and utility might also have some ideas. Your property team may have an existing engagement with contractors who can help lower your energy use so you’re not over the target energy use or carbon emissions anymore.

You’ll also want to understand the nature of the building’s ownership—if the building is jointly owned, this problem may partially belong to someone else who needs to be involved. Check your building’s leases too to understand whether you can pass fines through to tenants or if they’ll fall entirely on you.

This is worth doing even if you think your energy use is low enough to hit any targets your jurisdiction might require later, Curzi said. As long as your building falls into the right building type and it’s big enough, it’s likely to be affected sooner or later in some way. “If you think you’re impacted, these are the questions to start asking and build your network of who to come to when this becomes real,” Curzi said.

Step 2: Understand Your Energy Use

Next, you’ll need to understand whether you can meet the target. What’s going on with your energy? If you’re tracking data in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, that’s a good place to start. Your jurisdiction may even require that tracking as part of an existing benchmarking law—and if it doesn’t, chances are any jurisdiction with a building energy performance standard has required benchmarking at some point, so you’ll have a good idea of how your building has been using energy over the last year. If not, check with your utility to see if you can get that data.

This is the time to explore whether there’s something about your building or site that your jurisdiction didn’t consider when it set your target. Some buildings have a higher EUI because they’ve committed to electrification, so they’re drawing more grid power. Explore whether there are exempt energy uses that come into play, such as EV charging or backup energy generation, that would change how your jurisdiction looks at you as an energy user.

“Whether or not it’s included in the letter of the law, a lot of exemptions, extensions, and considerations have to do with on-site renewables or your level of electrification,” Curzi said. “Has your building gone through certain things to electrify? Your EUI might be higher as a result, but you’re a greener building in the eyes of the city.” The sooner you start these conversations with your jurisdiction, the better off you’ll be, Curzi explained.

Step 3: Assess Your Financial Risk

What will happen if you don’t meet the target set by your jurisdiction? Some places will actually have a fee calculator, which can be helpful to understand exactly what you’re facing in terms of penalties. You should also figure out when you owe the money—do you owe it 10 years from now or are you going to accrue new fines every year that you don’t meet the target? Is that something you can absorb?

Understand how much you can expect to pay if things continue as usual, Curzi advised, and also determine whether there’s an alternative compliance payment. This type of payment is not a fine or penalty. It simply allows building owners to meet the requirements by paying a fee instead of actually meeting the requirements, which can be helpful if complying with the regulations is going to be especially difficult or costly.

As you work to understand your financial exposure, check to see when your last energy audit was and whether you have equipment that’s been recently installed or is approaching the end of its life. The answers to those questions could affect your financial outlook too.

Step 4: Meet the BEPS Target

Make a plan to improve your building’s performance in time to hit the target—or develop a backup plan if meeting the target on time is impossible. First, determine how far away you are from the target. If you’re close to the target—say, you’re within about a 5% energy reduction of meeting the threshold—explore low- and no-cost options, such as tenant engagement, lighting retrofits, or equipment surveys. A gap of 5-25% calls for an ASHRAE Level II audit to assess implementation options and cut your energy use more significantly.

Buildings that need to reduce energy use by more than 25% to hit the target need a different plan. In addition to the above suggestions, start exploring other possible interventions too. Work to understand what’s actually financially feasible and in what timeline. Perhaps you can negotiate for a timeline extension, which will buy you a few more years to make upgrades, or a target adjustment, where you’ll have a less onerous target to meet.

You may also qualify for a base year adjustment based on how your target was calculated, Curzi said. For example, your jurisdiction may have looked at how your building operated in 2021 and decided you should reduce energy use 15% from that—but maybe the building had just received its certificate of occupancy that year, or it was only 50% leased and now it’s at 100%. These are facts you can take back to your jurisdiction to argue that the target is wrong.

The one thing you don’t want to do is wait until the fines are knocking at your door. Determine who you need to talk to, what your energy use is like, the nature of your financial situation, and what you can do to get close to the target, and then start working your plan.

“It’s not intended as a scare tactic, but these things are everywhere. They’re coming, and every one is different and nuanced,” Curzi said. “If it’s not affecting your building today, it will in the next three to five years. You’ve got to start planning this out.”