Proposal Status
Ready for Committee Review
Username
Stephanie Margolis
Proposer First Name
Stephanie
Proposer Email
stephanie@nycclimateaction.org
Proposer Last Name
Margolis
Proposer Phone
(917) 846-0251
Proposer Job Title
Executive Director
Proposed Session Description
Energy use in buildings accounts for nearly 70% of citywide greenhouse gas emissions, so scaling up energy efficiency retrofits is critical to achieving NYC’s ambitious climate goals. In commercial buildings, tenants consume more than 50% of a building’s energy and are key to driving energy efficiency improvements. This interactive session will highlight how three tenants collaborated with their commercial building owners and others involved in leasing to incorporate innovative approaches to reducing energy consumption within their own spaces. The case study presentations will be followed by three breakout sessions (moderated by the NYC Climate Action Alliance, the Institute for Market Transformation, Building Energy Exchange, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) that dive deep into specific energy efficiency solutions that tenants can and should implement to save money, create healthy and sustainable workplaces, meet local and state environmental and public heath regulations, and reduce energy. This session expands upon work that NYSERDA is advancing to develop pragmatic and actionable resources to facilitate meaningful collaboration between key commercial real estate stakeholders.
Why is this session important?
New York City has announced a commitment to climate action, and has taken steps to reduce the building emissions that constitute over two-thirds of the city’s total. But the city’s policies have been directed to owners rather than tenants, and this past year has proven that tenant spaces significantly contribute to carbon emissions. While commercial occupancy fell to historic lows in 2020 due to the pandemic, building energy use only dropped 10-20 percent, as shown in a Johnson Controls study conducted in September. The explanation for this lack of energy savings lies in the tension between base building energy usage versus tenant space energy usage and traditional leases. Not only do tenants – who control upwards of 70% of a building’s energy use – use too much energy in their space, but leases obligate landlords to expend unnecessary energy and simultaneously act as a barrier for either party to advance energy efficiency investments.
This session will highlight how important it is to focus on reducing energy consumption within tenant spaces to meet the city’s climate goals. Participations will learn how to bring building owners, commercial tenants, property managers, brokers, commercial leasing lawyers, architects, engineers and others together to create a culture of cooperation on deep energy retrofits, and will come away with effective resources that enable stakeholders across the market to meet zero carbon goals. By the end of the session, participants will be armed with multiple approaches to reducing energy consumption within tenant spaces for each stage of the leasing cycle from lease negotiations to tenant operations, to ensure that actors within the commercial sector have access to the right information at the right time to minimize missed opportunities and maximize critical energy savings.
Diversity and Inclusiveness
The Alliance (and it's contributing partners for this proposal) values a diverse work environment where we benefit from different life experiences and alternate points of view. To ensure that our session reflects similar values, we have only proposed a lineup of speakers who identify as women with one speaker also identifying as a person of color. We firmly believe that the inclusion of diverse perspectives permits the provision of the highest quality work while also promoting traditionally underrepresented viewpoints.
Learning Objectives
Understand key strategies that drive greater collaboration across the stakeholders involved in lease and office utilization decisions at the most critical times in the leasing cycle to drive sustained decarbonization and energy efficiency in leased office spaces.
Define the business case for incorporating energy aligned lease clauses that overcome the split incentive and more equitably align the costs and benefits of energy efficiency investments between landlords and tenants.
Learn how to leverage funding and financing opportunities to reduce energy consumption in tenant spaces.
Take actionable steps to integrate base building energy systems with tenant space energy systems to save money and reduce energy consumption within tenant spaces and the base building.
Has this session been presented before?
No
Target Audiences Level of Expertise
Level 1 - No prior knowledge needed.
Strongest Content Connection - NYC 2021
Reviewer 2
Engoren, Elizabeth
Curator
Altavilla Cooper, Jeannine
Committee Decision
Accepted
YES
YES