At our Catalyst Training for Savings conference last April, EnergyCAP CEO Steve Heinz outlined five reasons for tracking your buildings’ energy use through ENERGY STAR.

Whether or not you use EnergyCAP software for utility bill management, there is real value provided by the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tracking tool.

You can watch a video with Steve’s presentation right here by clicking the Play button. You can also read the summary below.

So Why ENERGY STAR?

1. It may be the Law

There are nearly two dozen jurisdictions (city/county/state) that already require some form of ENERGY STAR tracking for buildings exceeding a certain size/square footage. Click here to see if yours is one of them.

2. Tracking Enhances Your Building’s Value

Studies have demonstrated that ENERGY STAR-tracked buildings command statistically significant higher building value, including elevated sale and lease rates. According to the EPA, most organizations can achieve annual energy savings of two to ten percent using better energy management. ENERGY STAR is a significant energy management tool. More than half of the country’s Fortune 100® companies work with ENERGY STAR to improve building performance, as do eight of the ten largest U.S. healthcare organizations.

Commercial buildings that regularly benchmark building energy performance with ENERGY STAR cut their energy bills by seven percent over three years (2.4 percent per year on average). Run these numbers with your utility budget to see what you might be able to save.

3. Certification Offers Great Publicity

The ENERGY STAR building rating is a 1-100 point scale based on utility billing data and other factors unique to the building type. When the building achieves a 75+ rating, it becomes eligible for certification. If the building is certified, the EPA will award a handsome plaque. Mounting the plaque in a public area ensures enduring value beyond the initial photo op, since you are leveraging the authority of the ENERGY STAR brand which is recognized by nine out of ten people.

4. Participation Contributes to More Savings

ENERGY STAR participation naturally leads to greater availability and transparency of energy data. This rising level of energy awareness contributes to an energy saving mentality that is difficult to quantify but should not be underestimated. Building residents and tenants will get the message that energy efficiency is important—that energy savings are a priority with building owners and managers. This awareness will contribute to more savings.

5. It’s SO EASY with EnergyCAP

EnergyCAP, Inc. is a five-time ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year, and one of the few software providers so honored. Our “Sustained Excellence” designation is the most coveted status among award winners. We achieved this status by refining our automated software interface to make it easy for EnergyCAP users to submit all required energy and building data to ENERGY STAR without having to learn another software system and without having to do double data entry.

With a few mouse clicks, you can set up EnergyCAP to automatically submit all required data to the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager each and every time you add a new energy bill to the building history. Benchmarking couldn’t be much simpler, with EnergyCAP taking care of all the details. EnergyCAP even provides an ENERGY STAR report, so you can generate a list of all of your ENERGY STAR benchmarked properties without ever leaving the EnergyCAP software interface.