Is your building ready for the future? Are you struggling to balance emissions reductions, ESG goals, and the demands of aging equipment? The Retrofit Playbook for Large Buildings offers a clear path forward for building owners and engineers to navigate the complex challenge of future-proofing your building.
Learn about how this innovative knowledge-sharing platform can help you create cost-effective, long-term decarbonization strategies for large buildings.
NYSERDA and Building Energy Exchange, in collaboration with RMI and Ember Strategies, are excited to offer a comprehensive three-part Strategic Decarbonization Planning training series designed to help industry professionals tackle complex retrofit projects with confidence. Tailored for professionals in engineering, real estate, and technology, this training series will equip participants with the tools and knowledge to drive practical, cost-effective low-carbon retrofits in large buildings. Grounded in lessons learned from NYSERDA’s Empire Building Challenge and their innovative retrofit demonstration projects, participants will learn how to:
Don’t miss the chance to attend live training sessions for all three courses at Building Energy Exchange in downtown Manhattan. Read more about our high-impact, solutions driven training series below:
This first course of the series will explore Resource Efficient Decarbonization (RED) as a replicable solutions framework used to develop carbon neutrality roadmaps for large buildings in cold climates. Using real-world examples from Empire Building Challenge retrofit projects, participants will learn how to apply the RED framework to create comprehensive, long-term decarbonization plans for their buildings. Additionally, the training will review a range of technical solutions for decarbonizing buildings, highlighting how prioritization of these technologies can optimize retrofits.
The second course will focus on the finance and asset planning components of strategic decarbonization. Participants will learn how to evaluate and align technical solutions with economic realities and long-term asset strategies to inform decision-making. This course will also provide guidance on crafting compelling business case narratives that build stakeholder support and unlock investment for retrofits. By the end of the training, participants will be equipped to develop persuasive business cases that advance building decarbonization projects.
The third course of the series will be a highly interactive session offering a hands-on introduction to building decarbonization planning – delivered in a dynamic, game-based format. The session begins with a brief review of key concepts from the first two courses, then, participants will break into small groups to create a mock decarbonization plan for a real-world building scenario. Teams will evaluate strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while weighing factors such as costs, trigger events, and other site- specific considerations. Come prepared to collaborate, apply your skills, and dive into the decision- making process behind effective building decarbonization.
This resource is available to aid design teams and building owners in navigating the complexities of rapidly shifting supply chains. It will provide up-to-date information on lead times and pricing for key equipment essential to the design and implementation of low-carbon building and retrofit projects in large commercial buildings. It will be updated semi-annually to reflect changes in the supply chain.
To help guide commercial real estate stakeholders through decarbonization efforts, this resource provides strategies to overcome commonly identified barriers to achieving meaningful emissions and energy reductions in leased tenant office spaces, highlighting mutually beneficial collaboration opportunities between owners, tenants, and their design and legal representatives.
This resource is part of a series of actionable resources developed for the Decarbonizing New York City Offices 
project, an initiative dedicated to reducing carbon emissions in leased commercial spaces by facilitating meaningful collaboration between building owners, tenants, brokers, lawyers, designers and others involved in leasing and office utilization decisions. Learn more about the initiative: www.be-exchange.org/decarbonizing-new-york-city-offices
This playbook provides consultants — such as architects, MEP engineers, and energy specialists — with curated guidance and resources to help prioritize energy efficiency and emissions reduction strategies across various phases of the leasing cycle. Consultants should reference and revisit the information attributed to each step as office spaces within their project portfolio move through various stages of the leasing cycle.
This resource is part of a series of actionable resources developed for the Decarbonizing New York City Offices project, an initiative dedicated to reducing carbon emissions in leased commercial spaces by facilitating meaningful collaboration between building owners, tenants, brokers, lawyers, designers and others involved in leasing and office utilization decisions. Learn more about the initiative: www.be-exchange.org/decarbonizing-new-york-city-offices
This playbook provides commercial building owners and managers with curated guidance and resources to prioritize energy efficiency and emissions reduction strategies across various phases of the leasing cycle. Owners should reference and revisit the information attributed to each step as office spaces within their portfolio move through various stages of the leasing cycle.
This resource is part of a series of actionable resources developed for the Decarbonizing New York City Offices project, an initiative dedicated to reducing carbon emissions in leased commercial spaces by facilitating meaningful collaboration between building owners, tenants, brokers, lawyers, designers and others involved in leasing and office utilization decisions. Learn more about the initiative: www.be-exchange.org/decarbonizing-new-york-city-offices
This playbook provides commercial office tenants with curated guidance and resources to help prioritize energy efficiency and emissions reduction strategies across various phases of the leasing cycle. Tenants should reference and revisit the information attributed to each step as office spaces within their portfolio move through various stages of the leasing cycle.
This resource is part of a series of actionable resources developed for the Decarbonizing New York City Offices project, an initiative dedicated to reducing carbon emissions in leased commercial spaces by facilitating meaningful collaboration between building owners, tenants, brokers, lawyers, designers and others involved in leasing and office utilization decisions. Learn more about the initiative: www.be-exchange.org/decarbonizing-new-york-city-offices
As the world grapples with the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the built environment has become a critical focus area to deliver progress. Buildings are significant contributors to global carbon emissions, and transitioning to more sustainable, low-carbon operations is essential for meeting climate goals. Planning for that transition now, through a thoughtful and rational approach, is key to achieving success over time.
Design charrettes are an important tool project teams can use to support their decarbonization planning work. These collaborative design review workshops bring together diverse stakeholders to develop and refine strategies for reducing carbon emissions from buildings over time.
A design charrette is an intensive, multi-disciplinary workshop aimed at finding and refining solutions to complex problems. The term originated in 19th century Paris and refers to the practice of design students working intensely on their projects until the last minute, when a cart or “charrette” would be wheeled around to collect their final designs. The term has evolved to describe collaborative sessions that bring together developers, designers, domain experts, community members, and an array of other stakeholders to reach mutually beneficial outcomes. In the context of building decarbonization, design charrettes facilitate the rapid development of actionable (and at times substantially more innovative) strategies to reduce emissions from buildings, with alignment among multiple interested parties.
Charrettes are conducted just after a decarbonization concept plan is created and initial decarbonization measures are framed. A successful charrette requires being prepared to discuss the existing conditions of the building in detail, various decarbonization measures and approaches considered, and an understanding of the social and market conditions influencing the building owner’s decision making. The charrette process includes:
Design charrettes are a powerful tool for addressing complex decarbonization challenges, especially in the planning and early implementation phase. With collaboration, creativity, and iteration, charrettes enable the development of effective and sustainable strategies to reduce carbon emissions from buildings.
Through the Empire Building Challenge (EBC), NYSERDA is supporting forward-thinking leaders in the real estate and engineering industries, in the quest to find workable and scalable, cost-effective approaches to retrofit tall, complex, and hard-to-decarbonize buildings in New York. Partners and projects funded through the flagship $50 million demonstration program are working to reach a zero-emissions future. The groundbreaking work of these leaders is presented in this Playbook, which showcases a novel, compelling framework that can unlock opportunities for decarbonizing most buildings in a cost-effective manner, over time. We call the framework Resource Efficient Decarbonization.
To date, NYSERDA has partnered with 27 commercial and multifamily real estate owners who have committed to eliminate carbon emissions from some of New York State’s tallest and most iconic buildings. These partners have pledged to decarbonize over 128 million square feet of space, and more than 3,500 units of affordable housing. The scale of these partner commitments and the early success of EBC demonstration projects sends a clear signal that New York’s real estate industry is ready to accelerate investment in the buildings of the future.
Beyond these commitments, EBC partners collectively control and manage over 400 million square feet of real estate in New York. This amounts to over 20% of commercial office space in New York City, and more than 200,000 housing units throughout the State, representing a potential for impact much greater than the sum of its parts. The lessons learned during the planning, design, and implementation of EBC projects pave the way for the most viable solutions to gain traction and scale throughout the State, reinforcing progress toward the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 85% by 2050.
Understand the real-world implications and successes of the Empire Building Challenge through this in-depth article, “How to get New York City’s biggest buildings to zero carbon,” by Canary Media. This piece highlights the practical steps and measures being taken to reduce carbon footprints across New York’s architectural landscape, showcasing the challenge as a beacon for carbon-neutral aspirations worldwide.
This website is brought to you in partnership by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, RMI, Building Energy Exchange, and Urban Land Institute.
