Tenant Star Legislation

After nearly four years of amendments, deliberation, and lobbying, President Obama signed into law Senate Bill S.535, the "Energy Efficiency Improvement Act of 2015," on April 30th. Aimed at improving the energy efficiency of commercially leased buildings through voluntary cooperation between tenants and landlords, the bill introduced a feature program commonly known as Tenant Star. Modeled after the successful Energy Star program, Tenant Star works the same broad way as its predecessor, but is specific to individual tenants and businesses rather than a building as a whole.

The program provides resources for tenants and landlords to track, modify, and decrease the amount of power needed to run their offices, alongside potential tax incentives. Energy Star itself has saved businesses and homeowners an estimated $360 billion on utility costs since 1992 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 2.5 billion metric tons, so the ambitions for a tenant-focused parallel program were significant from the start.

What Does This Mean for Tenants?

Participation is entirely voluntary, so it's a choice for lessees and lessors to make. Gathering data on the energy consumption of individual sectors of a building is already common practice for many businesses using smart or learning thermostats and meters, and the results tend to be overwhelmingly positive. Beyond a small initial investment in hardware, cost savings can be immediate and significant for tenants with high energy usage.

Beyond monetary and environmental benefits, participating can be a useful tool for branding your business and building relationships. Working directly with your landlord to address energy consumption can strengthen that relationship and can help demonstrate to clients that you're a mindful, sustainability-conscious tenant.

How Can You Take Advantage of It?

Since the program is now active, tenants interested in participating can look into ENERGY STAR Tenant Space directly for current requirements and resources. Even outside the formal program, many of the same benefits, lower utility costs, a stronger relationship with your landlord, and a genuine sustainability story to tell clients, are available simply by tracking and managing your own energy use.