EH&E Study Reveals Building Decarbonization Trends Under Municipal Disclosure Ordinances

From Disclosure to Performance: What Eleven Years of Harmonized BERDO/BEUDO Data Reveal

EH&E’s Advanced Analytics team recently completed a comprehensive, multi-year research study of one of the country’s most extensive building performance data sets. Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, have some of the longest building performance records available for U.S. metropolitan areas. EH&E’s analysis examines eleven years (2014–2024) of building energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data reported under Boston’s Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) and Cambridge’s Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance (BEUDO). Both cities require large buildings to report and progressively reduce their emissions toward net-zero carbon goals.

Analyzing more than 4,000 large buildings and 30,000 property records, the study found that absolute GHG emissions and carbon intensity dropped 14% and 37%, respectively, despite a 31% increase in reporting floor area. Absolute emissions, carbon intensity, and decarbonization velocity vary considerably between the thirteen sectors analyzed, including industrial, healthcare, higher education, and technology/science, among others.

Alongside its analysis, EH&E developed a public-facing dashboard where anyone can look up a building by address to see its reported GHG emissions and energy use over time. Building owners, policymakers, and community members can also use it to compare performance by building sector across the two cities.

More trends and insights from the study are shared in this blog post.