BEEP BEEP, Time to Change How You Operate: BOMA's New Energy Efficiency Program for the Commercial Real Estate Industry

Brenna Walraven, USAA Realty and BOMA Foundation
Mike Mernick and Tom Roessler, ICF International
Deb Cloutier, JDM Associates

Keywords

Abstract

The Building Owners and Manager’s Association (BOMA) Foundation is affiliated with BOMA International, the nation’s oldest and largest commercial real estate organization, with approximately 19,000 members representing 80% of the commercial real estate market in the United States. BOMA’s new operational excellence program, the BOMA Energy Efficiency Program (BEEP) is being offered for use with federal and regional programs as a stand alone offering or in conjunction with value added services. BEEP provides information and resources for reducing the energy consumption of commercial office buildings via six 120-minute seminars that qualify for continuing professional credits. BEEP was designed to:

Educate owners and operators of commercial real estate on how to change their business processes to foster ongoing savings and improvements.
Deliver energy savings quickly through no and low cost improvements
Measure and track successes with EPA’s Energy Performance Rating system
Establish strong relationships with federal agencies, regional utilities, commercial real estate organizations, and local BOMA associations.

This paper will focus on BOMA’s leadership role in developing a market transforming, energy efficiency initiative and the resulting program - BEEP – for the commercial real estate industry. BEEP was modeled after the EPA’s ENERGY STAR program and developed with the expertise of commercial real estate practitioners. In addition, this paper will provide a summary of the lessons learned and best approaches to reach and educate commercial real estate practitioners on the importance of and opportunity to improve energy performance and enhance the asset value of commercial real estate.