City of Saint Paul's Energy Benchmarking Program

Organized benchmarking efforts have been underway in Saint Paul since the 2012 launch of the Kilowatt Crackdown sponsored by Xcel Energy, Greater St. Paul BOMA, and the Saint Paul Port Authority. In 2016, the City of Saint Paul began to consider adopting a benchmarking ordinance—like those that had already been enacted in only a small number of other U.S. cities at the time—with staff undertaking intensive research, planning, and stakeholder engagement during 2016-2018. In 2018, the City was awarded funding under the American Cities Climate Challenge to accelerate climate actions. That funding helped support the development of the Energize benchmarking program, among other ambitious climate projects. In 2019, the Saint Paul City Council adopted the Saint Paul benchmarking ordinance. Shortly after the benchmarking ordinance was passed, the City also adopted the Saint Paul Climate Action & Resilience Plan which established the goals to achieve carbon neutrality in city operations by 2030 and citywide by 2050. The Climate Plan Action & Resilience set a more specific target for the City to ensure 80% of institutional buildings were actively benchmarked within three years and 100% of large commercial and multifamily buildings were benchmarked before 2030, noting that achieving carbon neutrality citywide would rely on Saint Paul’s largest buildings making significant energy and emissions reductions.

Under the benchmarking ordinance, building owners were able to choose between two compliance pathways – the full disclosure pathway or the partial disclosure pathway. 

• Building owners that selected the full disclosure pathway submitted building details and complete energy and water data annually. These building owners received personalized support from the City's benchmarking team, personalized building report cards, and recognition opportunities for their leadership.
• Building owners that selected the partial disclosure pathway submitted only building characteristic data. This partial disclosure option was offered to align with the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. Since the City was asking for private information that would be classified as public data and could potentially be shared with individuals requesting information related to a property’s energy and water use, the City could not legally require full data disclosure from building owners. Therefore, the partial disclosure pathway was a means for building owners to refuse to provide some or all the information requested.

For the initial launch of the benchmarking program and annually thereafter, the City of Saint Paul provided technical support to help building owners set up and automate the energy tracking necessary for reporting under the ordinance. The program was purposefully designed to not require building owners to purchase any software or services, instead relying on the no-cost ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager platform for annual data submissions.

The Energize program team hosted virtual “Data Jam” trainings each spring to prepare building owners for the summer data submission deadlines. Representatives from the two utilities serving Saint Paul, Xcel Energy and District Energy Saint Paul, joined the training events to demonstrate how customers could set up their accounts to automatically upload utility data into Portfolio Manager. 
In addition to training opportunities, the City leveraged the following outreach and engagement tactics:

• Reminder letters were mailed to all buildings within the program each year to encourage compliance. As reporting deadlines approached, program staff followed up via call and/or email with any building owners that had not submitted data.
• A help desk, including a phone line and email address, was available to assist with benchmarking questions.
• City staff gave benchmarking presentations to partner organizations like Greater St. Paul BOMA to directly engage with building owners and promote the importance and successes of the program.
• Energize Saint Paul newsletters and a dedicated Energy Benchmarking webpage on the Saint Paul Climate Action Dashboard provided transparency into the benchmarking program. These newsletters were distributed to a mailing list of 600+ building owners, building operators, and other stakeholders.
• Annual recognition events hosted by the City celebrated the success of the Energize program and highlighted the leadership of building owners achieving significant improvement. 

Because of the extensive level of support for building owners provided under Saint Paul’s benchmarking program, compliance rates were very high, and the City never needed to issue fines to penalize non-compliant property owners.

The City of Saint Paul measured success of the Energize benchmarking program by tracking the percentage of properties in compliance each year and the change in the average energy performance of different building types at the program level. Average site EUIs were tracked for the sub-groups of building types within the program; Office, Multifamily, K-12 Schools, and Municipal Buildings (see the graphs on pg. 2 of the 2023 Benchmarking Report). Results were shared with building owners and the larger community through regular Energize Saint Paul e-newsletters, annual program reports, and posted on the Climate Dashboard’s Energy Benchmarking web page.

The City of Saint Paul also participated in the Efficient Buildings Collaborative, which was a regional effort with four neighboring communities – the cities of Bloomington, Edina, Rochester, and Saint Louis Park. The collaborative shared technical consultant services for the development and maintenance of an interactive Efficient Buildings Collaborative Map highlighting building energy performance progress throughout the region

In 2024, 656 buildings in Saint Paul benchmarked their 2023 energy and water use, achieving a record 93% compliance rate with the City’s benchmarking ordinance. Since the program’s inception in 2019, compliance rates have increased each year. The median site EUI for buildings in the benchmarking program decreased by 11% from 2019-2023 and reported a median ENERGY STAR Score of 85 (compared to the national median of 50).

In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature passed a statewide benchmarking law. To avoid confusion and duplication of efforts, the City of Saint Paul discontinued its benchmarking ordinance and allowed the State to assume responsibility for ensuring compliance for large building benchmarking. Because the state law is so similar to the City’s previous ordinance, Saint Paul building owners are well prepared to fulfill the requirements under the statewide Large Building Benchmarking Program. While the State assumes responsibility for benchmarking oversight beginning in 2025, the City of Saint Paul will remain engaged with its building owners and will continue to support energy efficiency through ongoing educational opportunities and partnerships.