Montgomery joins Prince George’s County, Annapolis, and Washington, D.C.—in the National Building Performance Standard (BPS) Coalition.
Earlier this week Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich announced that the County has committed to join forces with state and local governments across the country—including in Prince George’s County, Annapolis, and Washington, D.C.—in the National Building Performance Standard (BPS) Coalition.
The Coalition is a collaboration launched by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The goal is for building performance standards paired with complementary programs and policies will enable the meeting of health, equity, and climate goals.
According to the press release:
“Montgomery County is honored to join this impressive group of local and state leaders working toward smart, achievable goals to reduce greenhouse gases by implementing innovative and equitable building performance standards,” said County Executive Elrich. “We are already on this path, having submitted legislation to the Montgomery County Council in April 2021 that will expand the number of buildings covered by the County’s Benchmarking Law and require the use of less energy in public and private multifamily and commercial buildings. We have also improved our requirements for new buildings, and in 2021, we adopted the ambitious Montgomery County Climate Action Plan. That is our County’s strategic roadmap to reduce our communitywide greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2027 and 100 percent by 2035 using a racial equity and social justice lens.”
Upgrading and retrofitting buildings to increase clean energy sources and reduce overall energy use can dramatically reduce harmful emissions. Energy retrofits and upgrades also can be leveraged to concurrently improve a building’s health and resilience for its occupants and surrounding community while generating jobs and increasing local economic investment.
Through the coalition, Montgomery County is committing to increase community and local stakeholder engagement to co-design building performance standards and complementary policies and programs. This will be done with the goal of advancing legislation or regulation, with adoption by Earth Day 2024.
Read more about the White House Council on Environmental Quality.