24 disclosure jurisdictions live · expanding toward 40+
Every disclosed building energy report card in America.
142,504 large buildings across 24 benchmarking jurisdictions — every public energy-disclosure record in the US, unified into free, indexable pages: ENERGY STAR grades, energy-use intensity, carbon emissions and the year-over-year record. Only large buildings in disclosing jurisdictions report; that public record is all here.
At a glance
BuildingCensus publishes the energy benchmarking disclosures of 142,504 large US buildings from 24 city, county and state programs, one page per building, with report years 2011–2025. 84,490 of them report an ENERGY STAR score, averaging 70, and together they reported 73.6M metric tons of CO₂e across 17.6B square feet of floor area. The largest disclosures are New York City (48,310), California (40,029), Los Angeles (11,498).
Dataset updated . Refreshed from each city's public benchmarking disclosure.
Coverage
Benchmarking jurisdictions
Local Law 84 (LL84)
buildings · avg score 63 · avg site EUI 77.0
AB 802 (Public Resources Code §25402.10)
buildings · avg score 75 · avg site EUI 53.2
LA Municipal Code Div. 97, §91.9701 (EBEWE)
buildings · avg score 76 · avg site EUI 45.6
Clean and Affordable Energy Act / BEPS
buildings · avg score 66 · avg site EUI 63.1
BERDO 2.0
buildings · avg score 69 · avg site EUI 76.4
Seattle Energy Benchmarking Ordinance (SMC 22.920)
buildings · avg score 78 · avg site EUI 47.6
Building Energy Use Benchmarking Ordinance
buildings · avg score 60 · avg site EUI 84.4
Energize Denver Building Performance Policy
buildings · avg score 71 · avg site EUI 80.9
Building Energy Benchmarking Ordinance (SDMC Ch. 14 Art. 12)
buildings · avg score 79 · avg site EUI 59.8
SF Environment Code Chapter 20
buildings · avg score 81 · avg site EUI 44.9
Phila. Code §9-3402 / Building Energy Performance Program
buildings · avg score 56 · avg site EUI 78.5
San José Municipal Code Ch. 17.85 (Energy and Water Building Performance Ordinance)
buildings · avg score 78 · avg site EUI 59.7
Benchmarking Law (Bill 2-14) / BEPS (Bill 16-21)
buildings · avg score 69 · avg site EUI 69.3
Energy Empowerment Ordinance (No. 150299)
buildings · avg score 63 · avg site EUI 66.4
Commercial Building Energy Performance Reporting Policy
buildings · avg score 77 · avg site EUI 65.6
BEUDO
buildings · avg score 66 · avg site EUI 117.2
Ordinance 22-17 (City & County of Honolulu)
buildings · avg score 82 · avg site EUI 45.1
Commercial Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance (CBEEO)
buildings · avg score 72 · avg site EUI 48.3
Building Energy Awareness Ordinance 70474 / BEPS 71132
buildings · avg score — · avg site EUI 84.4
BESO (BMC Chapter 19.81)
buildings · avg score 87 · avg site EUI 39.0
BE305 Benchmarking Ordinance
buildings · avg score 76 · avg site EUI 45.0
Benchmarking and Disclosure Ordinance (2021)
buildings · avg score 73 · avg site EUI 69.0
Healthy Buildings Ordinance (1-O-25)
buildings · avg score 64 · avg site EUI 108.1
Reno Energy and Water Efficiency Program Ordinance
buildings · avg score 68 · avg site EUI 73.8
Queued next: Massachusetts (statewide), Minnesota (statewide), Boulder, CO, Columbus, OH and more — plus 13 jurisdictions whose laws haven't produced public data yet. Full coverage roadmap →
The report card
How America's disclosed buildings grade out
ENERGY STAR scores banded A (85–100) / B (70–84) / C (55–69) / D (1–54) across the 84,490 buildings that report a score. The average disclosed building scores 70.
The penalty hook
Biggest reported emitters
| # | Building | City | Emissions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ucla Main Campus | California | 239,571 tCO₂e |
| 2 | University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia | 197,016 tCO₂e |
| 3 | Pratt S.I. Campus - Total | New York City | 141,938 tCO₂e |
| 4 | Co-Op City | New York City | 138,481 tCO₂e |
| 5 | NYP Columbia (West Campus) | New York City | 132,358 tCO₂e |
| 6 | Intel Mission Campus | California | 120,106 tCO₂e |
| 7 | Uw - University Of Washington Seattle Campus (Master) | Seattle | 113,771 tCO₂e |
| 8 | San Francisco International Airport (Sfo) | California | 111,514 tCO₂e |
| 9 | Rush University Medical Center | Chicago | 97,340 tCO₂e |
| 10 | Ca1 | California | 94,994 tCO₂e |
Taxonomy
What gets benchmarked
| Property type | Buildings | Avg score | Avg site EUI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multifamily Housing | 59,945 | B70 | 59.0 kBtu/ft² |
| Office | 15,264 | B73 | 59.3 kBtu/ft² |
| K-12 School | 6,548 | C64 | 52.7 kBtu/ft² |
| Non-Refrigerated Warehouse | 4,723 | C66 | 26.0 kBtu/ft² |
| Distribution Center | 4,082 | C65 | 24.2 kBtu/ft² |
| Hotel | 3,812 | C65 | 77.8 kBtu/ft² |
| Self-Storage Facility | 3,050 | B75 | 9.4 kBtu/ft² |
| Retail Store | 3,025 | B73 | 57.7 kBtu/ft² |
| Manufacturing/Industrial Plant | 2,372 | C67 | 126.3 kBtu/ft² |
| Commercial | 2,307 | B76 | 51.3 kBtu/ft² |
About the census
What BuildingCensus is
The US has roughly 5.9 million commercial buildings (EIA CBECS). For most of them, energy performance is nobody's business but the owner's. In about 50 jurisdictions, though, a benchmarking-disclosure law makes it a public record — large buildings must report their energy use every year, and the city or state publishes the results. That disclosed slice is the entire public record of US building energy performance, and BuildingCensus's job is to carry all of it.
Each jurisdiction publishes its own spreadsheet on its own portal, with its own columns and its own quirks. The data is public; it just isn't usable: no unified pages, no grades at a glance, no year-over-year record, nothing an owner, tenant, broker or retrofit contractor can link to.
BuildingCensus is the unified census of that record: one page per disclosed building with its ENERGY STAR score and letter grade, site and source energy-use intensity, greenhouse-gas emissions and intensity, floor area, vintage and the full multi-year disclosure history — cross-linked to its jurisdiction, its property type and its compliance context (Local Law 97 caps in New York, BERDO and BEPS elsewhere). Provenance and freshness are first-class: every figure traces to a government's official disclosure file, and jurisdictions whose data isn't public yet are listed as exactly that.
Which city has the most energy-efficient buildings?
Ranked by average ENERGY STAR score across jurisdictions with at least 25 scored buildings, Berkeley (87), San Francisco (81) and San Diego (79) lead. The lowest averages are in Philadelphia (56), Chicago (60) and New York City (63). Across all 84,490 scored buildings the average is 70, and 54% score 75 or higher, the ENERGY STAR certification threshold.
Where do buildings use the most energy per square foot?
By average site energy-use intensity, the most energy-intensive disclosures are Cambridge (117.2 kBtu/ft²), Evanston (108.1 kBtu/ft²) and St. Louis (84.4 kBtu/ft²). The least intensive are Berkeley (39.0 kBtu/ft²), San Francisco (44.9 kBtu/ft²) and Miami (45.0 kBtu/ft²). The all-jurisdiction average is 64.9 kBtu/ft².
Which jurisdictions report the most building emissions?
Disclosed buildings reported 73.6 million metric tons of CO₂e in their latest years. New York City (28.8 million t, 39%), California (19.8 million t, 27%) and Chicago (5.2 million t, 7%) account for the largest shares. By building count the largest disclosures are New York City (48,310), California (40,029) and Los Angeles (11,498).
Frequently asked questions
What is building energy benchmarking?
About 50 US cities, counties and states legally require large buildings (typically over 20,000–50,000 sq ft) to measure and disclose their annual energy use through EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. The disclosures — ENERGY STAR scores, energy-use intensity and greenhouse-gas emissions — become public records. BuildingCensus unifies them into one page per building.
Why isn't every US commercial building here?
The US has roughly 5.9 million commercial buildings (EIA CBECS), but energy performance is only a public record where a benchmarking-disclosure law makes it one — and those laws cover only large buildings in the jurisdictions that have them. BuildingCensus tracks the entire disclosed record: 142,504 buildings across 24 jurisdictions, growing as more jurisdictions publish.
Which jurisdictions require building energy disclosure?
BuildingCensus covers 24 live jurisdictions — including New York City (LL84), California's statewide AB 802 program, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston (BERDO), Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Denver, Atlanta and Miami — 142,504 buildings in all. 22 more jurisdictions have disclosure laws whose data is queued or not yet published; see the coverage page.
What is a good ENERGY STAR score?
ENERGY STAR scores run 1–100 and represent a percentile against similar buildings nationwide — 50 is median and 75+ qualifies a building for ENERGY STAR certification. BuildingCensus bands scores like a report card: A (85–100), B (70–84), C (55–69), D (below 55).
Which building emits the most carbon?
Among disclosed buildings, the largest reported emitter is Ucla Main Campus in California at 239,571 tCO₂e in its latest disclosure year. See the biggest-emitters ranking for the full list.
About this data
Source: 24 municipal and state building-energy benchmarking disclosures, as published October 2, 2026. See the methodology for how records are matched, cleaned and scored.
Cite as: BuildingCensus, “US building energy benchmarking disclosures”, https://buildingcensus.com/ (data as of October 2, 2026).
Data access
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