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Page 8 — Property Management Quarterly — April 2020 www.crej.com Green A s buildings owners and managers, you have the responsibility to make impactful decisions on building dynamics. In a sur- vey of 1,700 Denver citizens, 93% agreed that Denver should take aggressive local action to combat climate change, according to the city’s 80x50 Climate Action Plan, and the city and county of Den- ver is listening! We see from these surveys that there will be more demand from tenants for environ- mentally friendly buildings. Imple- menting energy and sustainability measures will reduce a building’s cost over its life. So, the question is – when will sustainability be a requirement for all property man- agers? Following are some of the required policies and codes Denver has adopted. n March 2016. Denver’s move toward being a more progressive city in terms of energy codes gained traction when it adopted the Den- ver Building Code, which is based on the 2015 version of the Interna- tional Building Codes with Denver Amendments. Denver bypassed the 2012 versions of the IBC and went straight from a code based on IBC 2009 to a code based on the IBC 2015. This was an important step with efficiency gains of about 25 to 30% by using the more stringent (and more current) code baseline. n February 2017. Denver launched Energize Denver – a benchmark- ing ordinance that has achieved a 95% success rates for buildings within its first few years of opera- tion covering all buildings in Denver over 25,000 square feet. The city publishes build- ing energy per- formance data at www.energizeden- ver.org to enable the market to bet- ter value energy efficiency. The city has seen an energy improve- ment of about 4.5% as buildings go through the benchmarking process. The intent is that after buildings are bench- marked, the ones with lower Energy Star scores may be required to start performing energy audits and retro-commissioning, as is required in Boulder, in order to meet Den- ver’s 80x50 Climate Action Plan as described below. n July 2018. Denver created an 80x50 Climate Action Plan calling for 80% reduction of emissions by 2050 from 2005 levels. Within this plan, all new buildings will be zero net energy by 2035 by code, and all existing buildings will have a 50% reduction in existing building performance by 2050. The follow- ing policies and future policies are being developed to support this plan. n November 2018. Denver released the rules of the Green Building Ordi- nance – for new buildings 25,000 sf or more and for existing buildings undergoing roof replacements: • New buildings to add a cool roof plus meet one of many options including green space, payment toward off-site green space, 70% of roof area solar production, 12% energy savings above code, third- party certifications or a combina- tion of approaches. • Existing buildings to replace roof with a cool roof plus meet other similar but different options includ- ing green space, payment toward off-site green space, roof area solar production, enroll in Denver’s ener- gy program or third-party certifica- tions. n November 2019 . The city adopted Denver’s 2019 code with amend- ments that are 15% better than IECC 2018. Some highlights of interest include: • Continuous air barrier location, sealing details, verification and building thermal envelope testing – max of 0.40 CFM per square foot is required. If a building fails, a smoke tracer or infrared imaging must be done with corrective actions. • Design buildings to be solar- ready. This is not hard or expensive to implement but must be planned for in advance. • Electric vehicle charging station readiness, including requirements for EV-installed, EV-ready and EV- capable parking spaces based on the building type. • For the marijuana industry, there are now lighting, dehu- midification and cooling efficiency requirements for plant growth and maintenance. Additionally, in November, Den- ver launched its first Denver Green Code – a voluntary code for pilot projects that is 10% better than the Denver code and is based on the International Green Construction Code. The Denver Green Code pro- vides expedited permitting to those who choose to use it and meets the Green Building Ordinance. LEED Platinum buildings, net zero energy HowDenver’s green plans impact your buildings Renee Azerbegi President, Ambient Energy Ambient Energy Denver’s major sustainability measures enacted in the past few years. Please see Azerbegi, Page 24