BE-1.1bDevelop a Building Performance Standards (BPS) policy.

In 2022, the City of San Diego joined the White House's Building Performance Standards Coalition, a groundbreaking partnership aimed at creating cleaner, healthier, and more affordable buildings. As part of this commitment, the City aims to develop a draft Building Performance Standard (BPS) by Earth Day 2024. To achieve this, the City is coordinating with local stakeholders and working with the World Economic Forum to draft the BPS in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. In FY25, the City plans to evaluate how its existing benchmarking ordinance can gather data on large commercial and multi-family buildings, aligning with the goals of the BPS and contributing to a broader decarbonization roadmap.

Building Performance Standards (BPS) are policies and metrics designed to reduce carbon emissions in buildings by improving energy, gas and water usage. These building standards establish specific performance targets that building owners must achieve by continually enhancing their buildings to make them more energy efficient.

The City of San Diego is exploring a Building Performance Standard policy to implement and support the first two strategies of its Climate Action Plan: Decarbonization of the Built Environment and Access to Clean and Renewable Energy. Benefits of adopting a BPS include:

• Reducing emissions from buildings
• Improving indoor air quality which leads to better public health
• Long-term cost savings through reduced energy bills
• Increase access to affordable retrofits

The City of San Diego will be working with building owners, managers, tenants, external stakeholders, and community organizations that serve communities of concern to prioritize equity and to understand and address the existing barriers to make the electrification process as streamlined as possible.

Read more

• The National Building Performance Coalition website