Today’s Savvy Building Owners are Asking Themselves “What’s My Building eQ?”

Whether concerned about rising costs, the marketability of the property, or company image, a building’s energy use is increasingly at the forefront of an owner or tenant’s mind. Through a technically sound yet easily understood program, Building eQ provides you the information and resources to understand your building’s energy use and make informed decisions on the actions that make the most sense for you.

With information on both the design intent and the actual energy use, bEQ can help inform investments in equipment upgrades, re-commissioning or retro-commissioning and operations and maintenance.

bEQ provides owners flexibility through investment in the technologies and practices that make the most sense for their building.

Tenants are looking to understand energy use and cost. bEQ helps you answer questions that potential leases may have and helps them understand that your facility is a high-performance building with manageable energy costs and overseen by a building owner who pays attention to operations and maintenance.

Why Get a bEQ Label?

bEQ provides you, the building owner, along with tenants, potential owners and tenants, and building operations and maintenance staff with information on the potential and actual energy use of buildings. This information is useful for a variety of reasons. It allows you to see how your building compares to buildings of your type/usage to establish a measure of their potential for energy performance improvement, and to use the information provided to differentiate your building from others to secure potential buyers or tenants.

What Value Does the Building eQ Label Provide?

• Where applicable, side-by-side comparison of As Designed and In Operation ratings
• Peak demand reduction and demand management opportunities
• Energy use from on-site renewables
• Measurement-based indoor environmental quality indicators to assure indoor environmental quality has not been compromised and meets minimum standard (ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.1, Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, and ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 55, Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy)
• List of operational features including commissioning activities and energy efficiency improvements
• Identification of potential energy saving opportunities
• Information to help operations and maintenance staff understand how buildings are using energy

Estimated Costs

The cost of obtaining a bEQ label from ASHRAE is $500. Assessment and modeling costs are separate and would be paid directly to assessor or modeler.

Communicating Your Rating

ASHRAE believes that that providing building owners and the public with information focused on energy use with feedback to the design community will help bridge the disconnect between a building’s design and its operation.

bEQ provides you with relevant information to communicate your building use to your target audiences.

Through your participation in the program, you receive technical information that explains the rating score and all measurements taken that can be used by your building management staff. You also receive a certificate that can be used to comply with disclose laws.

ASHRAE supplies the earner with information on obtaining a plaque to be placed on site. Rating information on this plaque is simple to understand and targeted at the general public. It also satisfies public disclosure requirements at the state and local level.