Thousands of the city’s biggest buildings have slashed greenhouse gas emissions by 8% and energy use by 6%, a new report found.
The 3,000 buildings measured made the cuts from 2010, when the city started requiring large buildings to report their energy use, and 2013.
“Energy use has been going up in this country since Edison started delivering it to customers in New York,” said Cecil Scheib of the Urban Green Council, one of the authors of the report. “We have something that always got worse, and for the first time in a century it’s getting better, and that’s amazing.”
Greenhouse gas emissions fell from 3.37 million metric tons to 3.11 million metric tons over the period studied.
Mayor de Blasio has pledged to cut the city’s emissions by 80% from 2005 levels by 2050. The cuts measures in the latest data took place before he took office, but he said the report would help “identify areas to reduce our energy consumption and consider this downward trend of greenhouse gas emissions.”
“This is yet another tool that will create a more sustainable, equitable and resilient city,” de Blasio said.
The study found many areas where buildings could cut more waste. Three quarters of the space surveyed used steam heat, which can be replaced by more efficient systems.
And half the apartment buildings used air-conditioners in windows or walls, which allow air to escape — costing owners between $130 million and $180 million and adding 375,000 to 525,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
About 40% of space in apartment buildings and 25% in office buildings used energy-wasting incandescent lighting or fluorescent lamps. And only 10% of buildings had automatic light controls, which can switch off lights when no one is in the room or daylight is detected.
Scheib said many buildings have made upgrades and others should follow suit.
“People are putting in better lighting, they’re upgrading boilers and older heating systems, they’re putting in more energy efficient air conditioning,” he said.
“Part of it is to look beyond just the money and think about how if you have a building with better lighting, better heat, better AC, your tenants will be happier and you’ll get less complaints.”
Office buildings were found to use more energy per square foot than apartment buildings.
Residential buildings used the most energy for heat and hot water, while office buildings used it for electric power.
The city requires buildings over 50,000 square feet to measure their energy and water use every year.
The mandate covers about 15,000 buildings — which are less than 2% of properties but cover 47% of the city’s built square footage.
Only 3,000 buildings which have submitted fully detailed information for every year were included in the analysis.