New York City’s skyline is defined by its buildings, many of which are decades old and facing growing challenges from aging infrastructure and climate change. To protect both public safety and environmental health, New York City (New York) has enacted a suite of local laws requiring building owners to improve durability and efficiency. While these laws can be complex to keep up with and come with harsh penalties for non-compliance, expert solution providers, like QEA, can make the roadmap to sustainability and compliance seamless and achievable for building owners.

New York City Local Laws Driving Energy Efficiency and Building Sustainability

Buildings are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in New York – nearly 73% of the city’s emissions come from the energy used to heat, cool, and power buildings. Most large buildings in New York are decades old (on average 60-70 years) and were not built with modern energy standards in mind. To meet New York’s climate goals, a 40% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 and 80% by 2050, relative to 2005 levels, the city enacted a series of local laws targeting energy efficiency and carbon reduction in existing buildings. Key among them are:

Local Law 85 (Energy Conservation Code Compliance)

Local Law 85 ensures that whenever you renovate or alter a building, you must comply with the latest Energy Conservation Code. Now any renovation or alteration requires the project to meet current energy code requirements for insulation, lighting, mechanical systems, etc. For building owners, this might mean higher upfront costs for higher performing windows during a renovation, but significant cost savings in the long run through a more energy efficient building.

Local Law 87 (Energy Audits and Retro-Commissioning)

Local Law 87 (LL87) requires that large buildings undergo a professional energy audit and retro-commissioning every 10 years. An energy audit (typically ASHRAE Level II) is a systematic analysis of a building’s energy use and systems to identify cost-effective efficiency improvements. The goal is to give owners actionable insights into how to save energy and money across their portfolio, beyond the raw data of benchmarking. Many buildings have found low-hanging fruit (like sealing leaks) that quickly pay back the audit costs in saved utility bills. Compliance with LL87 often uncovers operational improvements that enhance a building’s performance and value.

Local Law 97 (Building Emissions Limits)

Enacted in 2019 as part of the Climate Mobilization Act, Local Law 97 (LL97) sets annual greenhouse gas emissions caps for buildings over 25,000 square feet. The law covers roughly 50,000 buildings across commercial and residential sectors. Compliance increases over time, and by 2030 the caps will cover 75% of buildings across the city, forcing deep retrofits and more energy efficient maintenance choices for large buildings. The goal is net zero emissions by 2050, meaning nearly all fossil fuels used in buildings must be eliminated or offset.

LL97 is considered one of the most ambitious building climate laws. Many buildings will need deep retrofits, especially by the 2030–2034 phase when carbon emissions limits tighten sharply. The city estimates that as of 2023, about 8% of buildings are over the 2024 limits, but 57% would be over the 2030 limits without improvements.

For a property owner, compliance can seem costly, but the cost of inaction is far greater. A building that doesn’t take measures to better understand and improve energy performance is likely spending more on fuel and electricity than necessary. Additionally, large corporate tenants often have their own carbon reduction targets and may shy away from buildings that will blow their carbon budget. A compliant building can market its resiliency and efficiency as selling points: cheaper to heat and cool, better for occupants, less likely to spring leaks or outages, and avoiding penalties for non-compliance.

How QEA’s Building Envelope Assessment and Retrofit Planning Services Enable Compliance

Achieving compliance can be complex, but innovative technology is proving incredibly valuable. QEA is at the forefront of this movement, providing detailed, precise building envelope audits using patented AI software, drones, and thermography. These assessments provide building owners with the exact insights needed to meet compliance obligations more effectively and identify the most impactful building upgrades.

The building envelope, the outer structure of the building, is often overlooked in traditional energy audits, yet it’s critical for both building sustainability and efficiency. Improving building envelopes is considered the most effective way to reduce the thermal needs of buildings, with envelope retrofits enabling upwards of 30% in energy savings.

QEA ’s solution deploys industrial drones equipped with high-resolution (8K+) thermal and visual cameras to scan entire buildings, collecting thousands of high-resolution, close-proximity images across the building envelope. This data is then processed and analyzed by QEA’s proprietary AI models that are built off of the largest database on the thermal performance of building envelopes. This approach yields a detailed thermal map of a building’s surface, pinpointing with sub-inch accuracy a number of issues such as missing insulation, leaky window frames, and moisture penetration. QEA’s audit can help spot not just visible degradation but also areas of potential façade failure like hidden moisture, delamination, or hazardous ice buildup.

QEA’s audits go beyond qualitative analysis, incorporating proprietary methods to quantify energy loss and forecasted savings for each square inch of the building envelope – accurately measuring megawatt-hours of energy loss, tons of carbon emissions, forecasted energy and emissions savings, and actual effective R-values. QEA’s methodology ensures real energy measurements, rather than assumptions based on theoretical models.

QEA has previously helped cities gather the data needed to meet pressing climate goals and tailor energy policy planning. For example, QEA’s audit of 190 buildings for a large city found that on average building envelopes were performing 75% worse than current building code standards, and that upgrading them could avoid 56% of the heat loss (and corresponding GHG emissions) those buildings were experiencing.

Importantly, QEA’s solution prioritizes actionable recommendations by calculating how much energy is being lost at each defect, how much can subsequently be saved through targeted retrofits, and the ROI of completing each retrofit. QEA’s retrofit solution partners can help buildings implement the recommended retrofits, simplifying the upgrade process and making it easier to meet regulations. From large hospitable campuses, apartment buildings, airports, library branches, and more, QEA has the experience to help owners of all building types cost-effectively meet regulation requirements.

Enabling Better Buildings Across New York

By understanding the local laws and embracing the solutions at hand, building owners and stakeholders can not only meet mandates but derive value from them, through safer buildings, lower operating costs, and more sustainable communities. The experience of firms like QEA in New York shows that with data, innovation, and commitment, even the oldest skyscrapers can shine green.