Building performance standards are no longer a fringe policy experiment. Across the United States, cities and states have enacted legislation requiring commercial buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, report energy consumption, and meet increasingly aggressive carbon targets. For property managers and building owners operating portfolios that span multiple jurisdictions, staying compliant means tracking a patchwork of deadlines, penalty structures, and reporting methodologies that differ from city to city.
This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the most significant building emissions regulations in effect or taking effect in 2026. We cover penalty structures, compliance timelines, covered building thresholds, and practical steps property teams can take to stay ahead of enforcement actions.
New York City: Local Law 97
Local Law 97 remains the most consequential building emissions law in the country. Passed as part of the Climate Mobilization Act in 2019, LL97 sets carbon emissions caps for buildings over 25,000 square feet in New York City. The law covers approximately 50,000 buildings and represents the single largest effort by any American city to regulate building-level carbon output.
Penalty Structure
Buildings that exceed their emissions limits face penalties of $268 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) over the cap. For a typical Class A office tower exceeding its limit by 1,000 metric tons, that translates to $268,000 in annual fines. The penalties are assessed on a calendar-year basis, meaning building owners receive a bill for the prior year's excess emissions. There is no grace period and no mechanism for appeal beyond demonstrating a calculation error.
2026 Compliance Period
The first compliance period runs from 2024 through 2029, with initial emissions limits already in effect. These early caps are designed to target the worst-performing buildings, roughly the bottom 20 percent of the city's building stock. The second compliance period, beginning in 2030, introduces significantly stricter limits that will affect a much larger share of the market.
Property managers should note that LL97 reporting is submitted through the city's benchmarking portal. Buildings must file annual emissions reports by May 1 each year. The city cross-references utility data against emissions factors to calculate each building's carbon output. Accurate utility data collection is therefore the foundation of any compliance strategy.
Key Considerations for Property Teams
- Buildings with steam heating systems face particularly high emissions factors, making steam-to-electric conversions a priority for many owners.
- Renewable energy credits (RECs) can offset a portion of a building's emissions, but the rules around eligible REC purchases are specific and must be verified carefully.
- The NYC Accelerator program offers free advisory services to help building owners develop decarbonization plans.
- Co-op and condo buildings are covered under LL97, which introduces additional governance complexity for property managers working with boards.
Washington, DC: The Clean Energy DC Act
Washington, DC's Clean Energy DC Omnibus Amendment Act established one of the most aggressive clean energy mandates in the country. The legislation requires the District to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and includes a building energy performance standard (BEPS) that applies to all buildings over 10,000 square feet beginning in 2026.
Expanding Threshold
Previously, the District's benchmarking requirements applied only to buildings over 50,000 square feet. The 2026 expansion to 10,000 square feet brings thousands of additional properties under regulatory oversight, including smaller office buildings, retail spaces, and multifamily properties that were previously exempt. This is one of the lowest thresholds of any major American city and will require many property managers to establish energy tracking systems for the first time.
Penalty Structure
Non-compliant buildings face penalties of $100 per day for failure to benchmark, plus additional fines for failing to meet performance standards. The District also requires third-party verification of benchmarking data, adding a layer of professional services cost that building owners must budget for. Verified data must be submitted through the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager platform.
Building Energy Performance Standards
Beyond benchmarking, DC's BEPS program sets actual performance targets for covered buildings. Properties that fall below the median energy performance for their building type must develop and implement energy improvement plans. The first cycle of BEPS compliance runs through 2026, with performance targets tightening in subsequent five-year cycles. Building owners who fail to meet their targets must demonstrate progress through documented capital improvements or operational changes.
Boston: Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO)
Boston's BERDO 2.0 ordinance, passed in 2021, requires large buildings to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The ordinance covers buildings over 20,000 square feet, or any building with 15 or more residential units. BERDO applies to approximately 3,500 buildings across the city.
Emissions Reporting Timeline
Building owners must report their emissions annually through the city's online portal. The first emissions standards take effect in 2025, with five-year compliance periods that set progressively lower carbon limits through 2050. The 2025-2029 compliance period requires buildings to meet emissions standards based on their property type and size, with specific thresholds published by the city's Environment Department.
Alternative Compliance and Hardship
BERDO includes provisions for alternative compliance payments. Building owners who cannot meet their emissions targets can make payments into the city's Equitable Emissions Investment Fund. The payment rate is set at a level intended to approximate the cost of achieving the required emissions reductions. However, this alternative is not unlimited. Buildings that rely on alternative compliance for consecutive periods will face escalating payment rates designed to incentivize actual physical improvements.
The ordinance also includes financial hardship exemptions for building owners who can demonstrate that compliance would impose unreasonable financial burden. Applications for hardship exemptions are reviewed by the city on a case-by-case basis and must include documentation of the building's financial condition and the estimated cost of compliance measures.
Chicago: Energy Benchmarking Ordinance
Chicago's Energy Benchmarking Ordinance requires commercial, institutional, and residential buildings over 50,000 square feet to track and report their energy use annually. The city uses ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager as its benchmarking platform, and building owners must submit their data by June 1 each year.
Covered Buildings
The ordinance covers approximately 3,700 properties across the city, including office buildings, hospitals, hotels, retail spaces, and multifamily residential buildings with more than 250 units. Municipal buildings are also covered. Chicago publishes benchmarking data publicly, which means building owners should be aware that their energy performance is visible to tenants, investors, and the general public.
Enforcement and Penalties
Chicago's enforcement approach has historically been less punitive than New York or Boston, but the city has been increasing compliance pressure in recent years. Buildings that fail to report face fines ranging from $100 to $500 per day, depending on the number of prior violations. The city also conducts random audits of submitted data to verify accuracy. Building owners who submit inaccurate data may face additional penalties and be required to re-submit verified information.
Moving Toward Performance Standards
While Chicago's current ordinance focuses on disclosure rather than performance targets, the city has signaled its intent to move toward building performance standards similar to those in DC and Boston. Property managers operating in Chicago should anticipate that benchmarking data collected today will form the baseline against which future performance targets are measured. Investing in data quality and accuracy now will reduce compliance risk when performance standards are eventually adopted.
Philadelphia: Building Energy Performance Policy (BEPP)
Philadelphia's Building Energy Performance Policy takes a different approach from many other cities by requiring physical tune-ups rather than emissions caps. Under BEPP, buildings over 50,000 square feet must undergo a certified energy tune-up conducted by a qualified assessor. The tune-up process evaluates building systems, identifies low-cost and no-cost improvements, and verifies that existing equipment is operating as intended.
Tune-Up Requirements
The tune-up must be performed by a certified Building Energy Tune-Up Specialist and covers HVAC systems, lighting controls, building envelope components, and energy management systems. Assessors evaluate whether equipment schedules match occupancy patterns, whether setpoints are optimized, and whether maintenance backlogs are contributing to energy waste. The resulting report must be submitted to the city along with documentation of any corrective actions taken.
Penalty Structure
Buildings that fail to complete their required tune-up face an initial fine of $2,000 plus $500 per day for each day of continued non-compliance. The penalty structure is designed to make non-compliance more expensive than the tune-up itself, which typically costs between $5,000 and $25,000 depending on building size and complexity. Property managers should note that the city has been increasingly aggressive about enforcement, and the grace periods that characterized early implementation have largely expired.
Building a Multi-Jurisdiction Compliance Strategy
For property managers operating across multiple cities, the patchwork of regulations creates significant administrative complexity. Each city uses different reporting platforms, different deadlines, and different methodologies for calculating emissions or energy performance. A building that is compliant in one jurisdiction may use reporting methods that are not accepted in another.
Centralizing Utility Data
The foundation of any multi-jurisdiction compliance strategy is centralized, accurate utility data. Every major building performance regulation requires detailed energy consumption data, typically broken down by fuel type and reporting period. Property managers who rely on manual utility tracking, spreadsheets, or disconnected systems will find it increasingly difficult to meet reporting deadlines and data quality requirements across multiple jurisdictions.
Automated utility data platforms that aggregate consumption data from utilities, normalize it for weather and occupancy, and map it to the specific reporting formats required by each city can dramatically reduce compliance burden. These platforms also provide audit trails that satisfy third-party verification requirements in cities like Washington, DC.
Key Deadlines for 2026
- New York City (LL97): Annual emissions report due May 1, 2026. Covers calendar year 2025 emissions.
- Washington, DC: Benchmarking data due April 1, 2026. BEPS compliance cycle reporting due by end of year.
- Boston (BERDO): Annual emissions report due May 15, 2026. First compliance period standards in effect.
- Chicago: Benchmarking data due June 1, 2026 via ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.
- Philadelphia (BEPP): Tune-up completion and reporting deadlines vary by building group. Check city schedule for your building's assigned year.
The regulatory trajectory is clear: building performance standards are expanding to more cities, covering more buildings, and imposing steeper penalties. Property managers who invest in compliance infrastructure today will be better positioned to manage these requirements as they multiply in the years ahead.
The cost of non-compliance is no longer limited to fines. Investors, lenders, and tenants are increasingly factoring building performance into their decision-making. A building that fails to meet emissions targets may face not only regulatory penalties but also reduced marketability, higher insurance costs, and lower valuations. Compliance is rapidly becoming a prerequisite for competitive positioning in the commercial real estate market.
Conduit helps property managers automate utility data collection and emissions reporting across every major jurisdiction. By centralizing energy data, generating compliance-ready reports, and tracking deadlines for each building in your portfolio, Conduit transforms what was once a manual, error-prone process into a streamlined workflow that scales with your portfolio.