St. Louis is first Midwest city to pass building energy performance standard

Buildings in St. Louis will have to meet energy efficiency standards after the city became the first in the Midwest to pass a building energy performance standard.

The fourth major city in the country to pass such a standard, St. Louis will allow “broad flexibility” on how owners can achieve efficiency goals, according to a post by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The legislation establishes incrementally increasing energy-saving targets for buildings with the goal of eliminating community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Buildings account for about 80% of St. Louis’s emissions. Site Energy Use Intensity (EUI) will be the chief performance metric under the new standard which covers buildings 50,000 sf or larger. Buildings of that size have been required to report energy and water use since 2017 in St. Louis.

Building performance standards enable cities to achieve multiple city priorities such as carbon reductions, building electrification, energy efficiency, and peak demand reductions.