Efficient
Buildings
Providing electricity and gas for O‘ahu’s homes and businesses creates over 30% of O‘ahu’s carbon pollution. The building industry is a key partner in reducing these emissions and the best time to make a building more efficient is when it is being built.
For new buildings, the City’s Energy Conservation Code determines a building’s minimum efficiency, whereas the City supports efficiency in existing buildings through Building Benchmarking and through collaboration to support building retrofits.
Key Projects
Building Benchmarking
Mayor Blangiardi signed Ordinance 22-17 into law July 20, 2022 to establish a Better Buildings Benchmarking Program for O‘ahu. Building benchmarking is the process of measuring a building’s energy and water use over time. This allows owners and occupants to understand their building’s performance relative to similar buildings and helps identify opportunities to cut energy and water waste.
Energy Conservation Code
Buildings account for almost one-third of Oʻahu’s carbon emissions. Building energy codes set minimum efficiency standards to help assure that newly-constructed buildings have lower energy costs and operate more efficiently over their lifetime. Ordinance 23-25, adopted by the Honolulu City Council and signed into law by Mayor Blangiardi on August 25, 2023, updated O‘ahu’s Energy Code to the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code with local amendments.