October 31st is the deadline for building owners to post their Energy Efficiency Rating Label. This is required for all buildings over 25,000 square feet that are listed on the 2020 Covered Buildings List for benchmarking compliance. In December 2017, the New York City Council passed Local Law 33, which was later amended by Local Law 95 in 2019, requiring building owners to post this label in a conspicuous location near each public entrance. The intent of this law is to provide transparency into a building’s energy usage and efficiency.

It has been estimated that the energy consumed from New York City’s buildings accounts for two-thirds of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. Building owners who are proactive in taking steps to reduce energy usage and increase their building’s energy efficiency will be rewarded with higher grades.

Buildings will be assigned a letter grade based on the annual energy benchmark that is submitted to the Department of Buildings to comply with Local Law 84. Letter grades will be assigned as shown in Table 1. These ENERGY STAR® scores are based on building’s occupancy type and measured against the energy performance scores of similar buildings.

Table 1: ENERGY STAR® scores from nyc.gov

An example of the label that each building must display is shown below in Figure 1. Labels became available on October 1, 2020 and must be downloaded from the Department of Building’s public portal. Building owners were given 30 days to download and post their Energy Efficiency Rating Label and those who not in compliance by November 1, 2020 will be subject to fines from the city.

Figure 1: Building Energy Efficiency Rating from nyc.gov

The steps to access and print the Building Energy Efficiency Label are below:

• Visit NYC’s Department of Building’s Website
• Scroll to the bottom of the webpage and choose “Get your Building Energy Efficiency Rating”
• Enter the Borough, Block and Lot numbers (as shown below in Figure 2)
• Complete the certification form.
• A link to access the Energy Efficiency Rating Label will be generated
• Additional labels can be downloaded via an emailed link that will be sent to the email(s) entered in the form

Figure 2: Get Your Building Energy Efficiency Rating from nyc.gov

If you have additional questions about how to access and post your Rating Label, please contact our team. We can help you download the label for your building and offer advice on how to improve your score for next year. More information about LL 33/95 compliance is available here.

It is important to note that compliance with Local Law 33/95 has little to do with compliance with New York City’s Local Law 97 and the Climate Mobilization Act (CMA). The Building Energy Efficiency Ratings associated with Local Law 33/95 are mostly based on a building energy efficiency and performance. Local Law 97 is the centerpiece of 11 pieces of legislation that make up the CMA and it is primarily focused on reducing a building’s carbon emissions. Local Law 33/95, Local Law 84, and Local Law 97 are intended to work in concert to track a buildings progress with emissions reductions and make existing buildings more energy efficient.