Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that Chicago will implement an Energy Rating System that makes energy use information for large buildings easily accessible to residents while encouraging energy savings, a move applauded by ESD’s Energy+Eco Group.
The zero-to-four-star-scale rating system is based on publicly available energy data, alongside recent energy improvements to buildings. Each building over 50,000 square feet will be required to post ratings in a prominent location on the property and share this information at the time of sale or lease listing. Chicago is the first U.S. city to assign buildings an energy performance rating and require properties to post their rating.