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The Trump Administration’s announcement that it plans to shutter the EPA ENERGY STAR program reverberated across the industry this week. While much of the attention is focused on the impacts on appliances, the housing and building performance industry would be heavily impacted by the end of the ENERGY STAR for residential and commercial buildings. After all, ENERGY STAR is foundational to many high-performance building programs.
Home builders rely on it to distinguish their homes from code-built construction. Commercial builders use their Portfolio Manager as a resource tool to benchmark their buildings’ energy use. Consumers have near-universal awareness of the ENERGY STAR brand, both for appliances and homes, with 8 out of 10 Americans familiar with the brand.
If ENERGY STAR for residential and commercial construction is yanked unceremoniously, how would this affect home buyers, high-performance home building, and home builders? Insulation Institute spoke with Connor Dillon, a second-generation building performance manager with Texas-based Building Science Institute, about the huge ramifications.
The Impact of ENERGY STAR
The ENERGY STAR program serves as a foundation for energy performance in appliances and buildings, and its impact has been far-reaching. In the 33-year history of the program, it has grown to become the international standard for energy efficiency and one of the most successful voluntary government programs in history, according to the ENERGY STAR program. EPA’s ENERGY STAR website says the program has saved 5 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, reduced energy costs by $500 billion, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 4 billion metric tons.
Impacts on Commercial and Residential Construction
While much of the media attention has been focused this week on ending ENERGY STAR for appliances, the end of the ENERGY STAR program for buildings has significant implications for residential and commercial construction, says Dillon.
“There’s so much that goes into ENERGY STAR. One example is Portfolio Manager. This tool is used for many cities and commercial construction to benchmark the energy performance of buildings. For example, the city of Austin, TX, and many other cities use the tool for EUI (energy use intensity) benchmarking,” Dillon said. “If there’s no funding to maintain that tool, what happens?”
“With something as critical as Portfolio Manager for the commercial side, I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
In residential construction, ENERGY STAR is the prerequisite for many high-performance building programs and requirements. ENERGY STAR homes must be at least 10 percent more energy efficient and often require more insulation in walls, ceilings, and floors than code-built new homes.
The U.S. Green Building Council uses it as a foundation for its LEED green building certification program. But ENERGY STAR is a baseline or starting point toward even more energy-efficient buildings, like passive house.
Ending the program with nothing suitable to replace it would be devastating to the high-performance building sector.
“There are a few places where the government did things right, and one of them was the ENERGY STAR program. It’s voluntary, and builders could opt into it, but they also reaped the benefits of the program, as many builders received credits and incentives based on meeting ENERGY STAR program requirements.”
“Getting rid of a voluntary program that is popular with everyone, and manufacturers and builders can participate in – I don’t see the logic.”
Dillon expressed reservations about privatizing the ENERGY STAR program, which has been mentioned as a goal of the Trump Administration.
“There are no private entities that have their own widely accepted, national programs for voluntary certification that are equal to or better than ENERGY STAR. Also, in this function of privatizing things, generally, the people with the most money in their back pocket to pay for lobbyists will get their way.”
Designed and Built Better
Dillon said ENERGY STAR’s mandatory requirements are one way for builders to show that their construction is better than the typical home. “Building to ENERGY STAR requirements is not easy, but if a builder is intentional, it’s doable and worthwhile.”
“This is a program that residential builders, energy raters, HVAC, and insulation contractors all rely on in their work. Ending it means the downstream impacts to other building industry professionals and buildings themselves would be major, especially with no suitable, well-known replacement.”
“The market needs options on the pathway to the most stringent form of building, passive house. There’s still a need for some measurable, marked difference. ENERGY STAR has been a stepping stone to the highest performance building, the Passive House. There’s code-built, ENERGY STAR, Zero Energy Ready, and Passive House. It’s progressing, and it is a valuable program.”
“If ENERGY STAR goes away, the sky is falling…everyone is looking at appliances, but the big concern is all these state organizations, public utility companies, community and housing development organizations – they all rely on the ENERGY STAR program to assure that new homes and buildings are energy efficient, particularly for low-income housing,” Dillon said.
“It’s proof that homes are built better. This would basically disincentivize people to build a better product,” he added.
Industry Responds
In response to the announcement of the end of ENERGY STAR, energy efficiency advocates have urged the administration to reconsider.
“If you want to raise families’ energy bills, getting rid of the ENERGY STAR label would be a pretty good way,” said American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) President Steve Nadel. “This would take away basic information from consumers who want to choose cost-saving products easily. There’s a reason this program has been so popular with consumers and manufacturers alike.”