Lawrence Moss and Scott Schonfeld recently published a client alert on the City of Chicago’s new Building Energy Use Benchmarking Ordinance. Chapter 18-14.

Chicago now joins several other major municipalities which have adopted similar legislation, including New York City, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Boston, and San Francisco. Subject to limited exceptions, and staggered reporting obligations, the Ordinance broadly requires owners of larger commercial and residential buildings (>50,000 sq. ft.) to submit information to “Energy Star Portfolio Manager” (the “Benchmarking Tool”) to create a benchmark of energy consumption for buildings covered by the Ordinance. These benchmarks will then be shared with both the City, and, subject to the approval of the Chicago’s commissioner of business affairs and consumer protection, the general public.  It is estimated that approximately 3,500 buildings city-wide are implicated by the Ordinance.

Please check-out the client alert for the full analysis of this important new ordinance.