Mandatory Carbon Emission Caps on Buildings Coming Soon

Owners and landlords of buildings who thought they had until the end of the decade to start reducing carbon emissions better reset their alarm clocks. Carbon caps are coming soon to a city near you.

With buildings generating an estimated 40 percent of the carbon emissions in the US, several cities are preparing to enforce carbon caps on buildings as small as 20K SF, with the first mandates going into effect as soon as 2024.

New York City’s Local Law 97 (LL97), enacted in 2019 as part of the city’s Climate Mobilization Act, place carbon caps on most buildings larger than 25K SF.

There are an estimated 50,000 residential and commercial properties in New York that will be covered by the caps, which will go into effect in 2024 and become more stringent over time, with a goal of reducing carbon emissions from the city’s buildings by 80 percent by 2050.

In October, Boston adopted an update to the city’s Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (known as BERDO) that requires buildings of 20K SF or more to report building emissions and meet mandatory caps that go into effect in 2025.

Boston’s caps are scheduled to get tighter—meaning a lower amount of emissions will be acceptable—every five years until 2050, when Boston requires buildings to be carbon neutral. An estimated 70 percent of emissions in Boston come from buildings.

The passage of the emissions ordinance update, known as BERDO 2.0, is forcing developers who configured their building projects under existing guidelines to scramble to include long-term adjustments into the plans they are submitting for permitting. 

Boston’s new law allows building owners to achieve their reductions by converting electricity from fossil fuel sources and hooking up renewable energy to the city’s electric grid.

New York State gave a big boost to the carbon-emissions reduction program in the nation’s largest city when it announced this month that the state will spend more than $4 billion to install long-distance transmission lines to bring hydropower from the Niagara region to New York City.

Last year, NYC’s Department of Buildings reviewed applications for adjustments to a buildings 2024-2029 annual carbon caps from non-profit hospitals and healthcare facilities. The Department of Buildings has launched a Greenhouse Gas Emission Reporting website that explains the requirements of LL97.

New York also is developing a system that allows building owners to engage in “carbon trading” to help achieve overall caps.