With new legislation passed in New York City late last year, all of New York's buildings totaling more than 50,000 sq ft are required to submit to benchmarking and retro-commissioning, essentially putting those buildings' efficiency ratings up against other buildings across the country.
Benchmarking essentially ranks a building’s energy and water efficiency against similar buildings. The legislation specifies the use of the U.S. EPA’s Portfolio Benchmarking tool as the standard for calculating the ranking.