Yet these workhorses of our vertical transportation systems – Americans make 20 billion elevator trips per year – are anything but generic. Indeed, the extraordinarily elaborate industrial and regulatory structure baked into the ordinary elevator plays an outsized role in explaining one of the more perplexing riddles of the built form of global cities, which is this: why do North American cities produce far more tall-and-sprawl development, whereas urban regions in other parts of the world typically feature extensive tracts of mid-rise buildings that beget denser and more sustainable neighbourhoods?

The answer, or at least a significant part of it, can be found in an eye-opening May 2024 deep dive on the state of the global elevator sector, published by a Brooklyn think tank called the Center for Building in North America. Written by its executive director, Stephen Smith, the report unpacks why North American elevators are on average three times more costly than their European counterparts – a price divergence that has enormous implications for built form. The United States and Canada also have fewer elevators per capita than any other high-income country.

“High-income countries with strong [labour] movements and high safety standards from South Korea to Switzerland have found ways to install wheelchair-accessible elevators in mid-rise apartment buildings for around $50,000 each, even after adjusting for America’s typically higher general price levels,” the report finds. “In the United States and Canada, on the other hand, these installations start at around $150,000 in even low-cost areas.”

The elevator question has taken on much more salience in the past few years as big cities across North America juggle severe housing shortages and sustainability-driven efforts to intensify residential neighbourhoods by allowing multiplexes and low-rise apartment buildings amidst huge swaths of detached houses. While some cities – such as Seattle and New York – still permit the construction of walk-ups without elevators, such dwellings limit accessibility for people with disabilities, seniors and young parents. What’s more, the high cost of North American elevators has made retrofitting those older buildings financially unfeasible – a problem older apartments in Europe do not face.

Smith’s study shows that North America has hewed to a largely outdated form of elevator regulation, whereas the rest of the world in the late 2000s adopted a far more flexible European technical standard that allows builders to install or retrofit elevators in low- and mid-rise buildings far more easily and inexpensively than is the case in the U.S. and Canada.

In Canada and the U.S., the average number of apartments served by a single elevator now exceeds 100. In Europe, the ratio is far lower, at about 30, at least in part because most European jurisdictions allow the construction of “point access block” apartment buildings, which are configured around a single winding staircase and tend to be lower and squatter. Smith points out that even in very small multi-family buildings in much of Europe, with only one or two dozen units, it’s not unusual to have multiple elevators.

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Smith himself became acutely aware of elevator access issues not long after buying a fifth-floor condo apartment in a newly built Brooklyn walk-up in 2017. He chose the building because of the low monthly maintenance fees. “I was an in-shape 32-year-old and had only ever lived in walk-ups in New York,” he wrote. “An elevator just seemed like an unnecessary cost.”

Yet soon after he took possession, Smith contracted a viral infection that produced a debilitating constellation of symptoms, including dizziness, extreme fatigue and nerve damage. Cycling became treacherous, and the climb up to his apartment turned into an arduous trek.

At the time, Smith was tuning in to the surge of interest among American urbanists and small builders in early efforts to increase density in cities like Minneapolis, whose council in 2018 made triplexes legal anywhere in the city and abolished parking requirements. Contractors responded, but often with low-rise apartments that lacked elevators. Yet through friends and relatives in places like Romania and Italy, Smith knew that in those jurisdictions, small-scale apartments routinely came fitted out with lifts.

Besides the yawning gap between the technical standards in North America and the rest of the world, Smith’s investigation uncovered a range of other factors that drive up costs in Canada and the U.S. These include chronic shortages of skilled workers who can build and maintain elevators and restrictive provisions in collective agreements between the major manufacturers – such as Otis and Thyssen – and the elevator trades. Case in point: while the manufacturers increasingly want to move production offshore and ship pre-assembled elevator components, contracts allow unionized workers to actually disassemble pre-assembled parts and then rebuild them on site, a measure meant to eliminate production efficiencies that could reduce jobs.

Regulations, especially around accessibility, also play a perverse role. North American rules specify minimum cab sizes to allow for turning radii for wheelchairs and stretchers. The result, overall, is fewer elevators and thus less accessibility, Smith found.

Finally, the technical specs in North America are less flexible and more complicated, and Smith argues that there’s a linear relationship between that complexity and cost. The cost helps drive development choices: builders want to go higher to recoup those investments, and consequently the elevators serve more people, receive more wear and tear, and are therefore down far more frequently. In high-density urban cores, like Toronto’s downtown, the results are elevator peak periods and lineups to get out the door.

Smith’s recommendations include a call for North American regulators to consider the high-level implications of ratcheting up safety and accessibility standards, which, evidence suggests, ends up leading to fewer elevators or elevator-accessible apartment buildings.

The report’s primary recommendation, however, is philosophical: North American regulators and standards-setting entities should seek to take a more international outlook, borrowing from what’s worked fine in most of the rest of the world. “In the absence of strong data on the inadequacy of international practices, deference should be given to what is tried and true in societies with far more – and far more affordable – elevators than North America,” the report says.

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About a decade ago, Lynn Mueller, then in his mid-50s, had just retired from a run leading a geothermal firm. As he was casting about for his next act, Mueller noticed that his annual water bill had soared to more than $1,000 – a fact of domestic life he attributed to the presence of two teenagers. “Being a cheapskate,” he recalls with a chuckle, “I wanted to figure out how to get that money back.”

Leaning in, Mueller realized those dollars were literally flowing down the drain, in the form of hot water from showers, meaning, he knew, that the natural-gas-generated energy used to run the water heater was also going to waste.

The Vancouver entrepreneur didn’t invent drain-water heat exchangers. But he has spent the last several years engineering a more efficient version of the technology, which he’s now selling through Sharc Energy Systems, a publicly traded company he founded that designs “wastewater heat recovery systems” that use heat pumps to capture and recycle thermal energy from drains and sewer lines.

The firm began commercializing its technology about five years ago. Sharc has won customers in Washington, D.C., Seattle and Vancouver, which has fostered a thriving green-buildings sector with demanding energy codes and projects such as the False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility, a City of Vancouver venture that reuses waste energy from sewer mains to heat about 5.7 million square feet of residential, institutional and commercial space downtown. Sharc developed the waste-water filtration systems that have been used in the facility since 2016.

Mueller says his company has a few high-profile advocates in its corner: former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt sits on the board, while the potential of waste-water energy recovery has been talked up to municipalities by former Toronto mayor David Miller, a prominent green building advocate through the C40 network of megacities committed to climate action.

In his new book, Solved: How the World’s Great Cities are Fixing the Climate Crisis, Miller describes waste-water heat recovery as an emerging technology that is not only relatively simple, but uses heat sources “that have not been traditionally thought of as a resource which exists in all buildings, and are renewable.”

“There’s massive potential with these technologies,” he said in a recent interview.

In the case of New York City – where Sharc has a two-year-old partnership with Highmark, an HVAC and energy-efficiency contractor, and utility giant Consolidated Edison – there are 100,000 buildings, and half of them need energy retrofits.

New York figures in Miller’s book as one example of how big cities can drive energy savings and reduce the carbon used by buildings, estimated to be responsible for about 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The city has, since 2009, required certain building owners – mainly large commercial landlords – to benchmark and publicly disclose their energy- and water-efficiency levels.

Subsequent changes to the policy have widened the net of buildings required to comply and added a standardized scoring system. Technologies like Sharc and other upgrades to mechanical systems, like high-efficiency HVAC, play a large role for property managers who have to hit those targets. Mayor Bill de Blasio last year pushed through an even more aggressive timetable for building owners to slash emissions.

“The case for benchmarking is quite simple,” Miller says. “Requiring building owners to publicly state the energy efficiency of their buildings will cause the market to change its behaviour. Once prospective tenants, who are responsible for paying the cost of heating and cooling, know how inefficient the building is, the owners [will] adapt in order to accommodate the desires of the tenants.”

The former Ontario Liberal government introduced mandatory benchmarking for large buildings in 2017, and a somewhat watered-down version remains in effect. The City of Edmonton three years ago introduced voluntary benchmarking, with incentives for owners to comply, according to Abhishek Chakraborti, senior environmental project manager. The number of participating buildings has risen from 99 to 278. Chakraborti says that the city is looking at making the program mandatory.

You need to mandate energy efficiency. It’s such an obvious thing, because  it pays for itself.”

– David Miller

Miller says that required benchmarking and disclosure is the only way to confront the dilemma of “split incentives” – that is, that for the developers and owners of buildings, there’s often no financial upside to energy-efficiency improvements because it’s the tenants or condo investors who bear the cost.

“There is a structural market failure, [so] you need to mandate energy efficiency. And it’s such an obvious thing, because it pays for itself. It’s the right thing to do. It creates jobs, and you end up with a better building, better air quality, and probably better conditions for people to work in.”

In Solved, Miller discusses an even more ambitious city-focused green building program: Tokyo’s cap-and-trade system, which has been in effect since 2010 and applies to every building. The municipality proscribes emission reductions but also offers “a solution for buildings that are so difficult to improve that they cannot meet the targets: trading carbon credits.” Those owners that can’t boost efficiency must buy credits from buildings that have exceeded theirs. According to Miller, Tokyo buildings subject to the cap-and-trade program have cut their emissions by 27% compared to 2009 levels.

Overall, Miller adds, enforceable building-related energy-efficiency goals – in the form of building codes, benchmarks or other mechanisms – are driving investment in sustainable building materials, components and technologies. Indeed, B.C., with its increasingly stringent building codes, has become a magnet for sustainability entrepreneurs like Lynn Mueller, who can not only see the writing on – and in – the walls, but understand how to profit from it.

As he says of waste-water heat recovery, “The billions of dollars that goes down the drain around the world is worth recovering. It’s not rocket science.”

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With this clout, institutional investors play an important role in promoting sustainable building practices in new construction and existing building retrofits.

“Pension plan-owned real estate companies have done more to drive green buildings in Canada than market demand or government regulation,” says Lisa Lafave, senior portfolio manager of real estate at Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP). “Our fiduciary mandate to maximize financial returns and minimize the risk of asset depreciation fits very well with green buildings,” she says.

The role big investors can play is varied. They can throw capital behind green developments and retrofits of existing buildings. They can take the step of certifying their assets through green labelling systems such as LEED (Leadership in Environment and Energy Design). They can build sustainability criteria into investment decisions by establishing sustainability objectives for asset and property managers in advance. Asset owners can also choose to openly share their buildings’ energy and water usage data through industry benchmarking programs (when mandatory programs are not in place). Altogether, their actions send the important message that sustainability matters throughout the entire value chain, from material suppliers engaged during construction to tenants who end up occupying the building space.

Such actions tend to lead to stronger returns. Sustainability leaders such as HOOPP and Cadillac Fairview (owned by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan), which are current or previous clients of mine, have consistently outperformed the industry index over the past three years with average real estate returns of more than 17 per cent (compared to an index average 13.6 per cent).

The data shows that green-certified buildings with superior comfort and good air quality have, on average, higher occupancy and less lease turnover. These are probably the most important drivers of cash flow in a building portfolio. As an example, Toronto-Dominion Centre, one of the crown jewels in Cadillac Fairview’s office portfolio, has a 97 per cent occupancy rate, significantly higher than other comparable downtown properties. During the past five years, TD Centre has structured its entire business plan around sustainability excellence and it appears to be paying off.

Sustainability programs also improve operational efficiency, which leads to operational savings. “Investments in equipment and operational procedures can reduce or cap our operating costs,” said TD Centre general manager David Hoffman. “It is a smart decision for our tenants, for our business and for the environment.”

There’s also the long-term perspective to consider. This is the notion that a sustainable building is a way to manage financial risk. Buildings are, per se, more resilient to regulatory changes and market demand when investment criteria such as energy efficiency, climate resiliency, transit-friendly location and healthy indoor environment are incorporated into the investment decision.

This is why in the Canadian commercial real estate sector, LEED certification is a market expectation in core markets such as downtown Calgary and Toronto. Also, many public sector tenants now require green certification. It has become the price to play. However, these tenants will stay longer and contribute to high occupancy rates, which ultimately achieves portfolio return objectives.

Indeed, very inefficient buildings can sometimes become stranded assets. The European Union launched the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive in 2005, where each office building is given an energy performance rating. Now, the U.K. is making it unlawful to lease or sell any building with the least desirable F and G energy performance labels as of 2019.

If the institutional real estate investors’ most important role to date has been to secure meaningful pensions or insurance payouts for its members, their legacy will be at the macro level. Through their current strategies, institutional investors are changing the real estate industry by integrating sustainability into day-to-day management and building industry competencies along the way. At the local level, their contributions reduce the toll on sewers, energy and roads and contribute to improved air quality and human health.

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Yes, celebration is in order. However, a sizable gap remains between this decline in emissions and the GHG reduction targets set by many cities, provinces and states. Toronto, for example, aims to lower its emissions to 30 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. Closing the coal plants got the city about a quarter of the way to that goal.

In addition to decarbonizing their electricity supply, communities across North America also need to dramatically improve levels of energy efficiency and reduce energy demand if they are to meet ambitious reduction targets. In urban centres, roughly half of the GHG emissions are associated with the energy used to heat, cool and run buildings. Making large structures – condominiums, office towers, institutions and apartment buildings – more energy efficient is the fastest and most cost effective means of addressing climate change.

As they say in the accounting profession, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. That’s why energy reporting is critical to driving down energy (and water) consumption and realizing sustainable, energy efficient cities. Benchmarking, data collection and monitoring – all captured in an energy reporting policy – is emerging as one of the most effective tools to reduce energy consumption on a massive scale. Indeed, throughout Europe and across the U.S., policies have been rolled out mandating that building owners and managers monitor and report their energy consumption levels.

In the U.S., New York City, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco are among the cities that have implemented such programs. Similar policies, often referred to as an energy reporting requirement (ERR), are being explored in Canada by cities such as Vancouver and Toronto.

Through an ERR, owners and managers of commercial and multi-unit buildings are required to report the annual amount of energy used by their building to an independent third party, usually a government body. In this way, baseline energy consumption for individual buildings is established, as is a baseline for the overall energy consumption of a city’s building stock. Local government agencies can then aggregate emissions information and send back useful data to owners and managers about how their building is performing relative to similar buildings. The data also helps identify local trends in energy consumption and informs the design of effective conservation programs.

By itself, an ERR is not the silver bullet to the problem of climate change. But it is a highly effective approach when used in combination with supporting instruments. Analysis of both voluntary and mandatory energy reporting programs shows that tracking energy consumption and comparing performance among similar buildings leads to an average 2 to 3 per cent improvement in annual energy efficiency rates. Through an ERR, this potential could be applied citywide to generate a significant reduction in energy use. Reductions could possibly be greater still if the reporting requirement is implemented simultaneously with other programs such as conservation demand management initiatives and financial incentives that support energy efficiency retrofits and equipment purchases.

The value proposition of an ERR is multisided, with benefits for consumers, building owners, utilities and the planet. Owners can use superior energy performance ratings to promote their buildings as more desirable and better managed. Operating costs are lowered since less money is spent on energy use. U.S. studies have shown that buildings with green status benefit from higher sale prices, rental rates and occupancy rates compared to non-green labelled buildings. On the other side of the equation, tenants, lessees and buyers can use publicly available information about a building’s energy efficiency to inform real estate decisions in much the same way consumers can compare fuel efficiency rates when buying a car, understanding that the energy performance will affect long-term operating costs.

Over time, the data generated from an ERR will provide a wealth of analytical opportunities for city planners, utilities and academics – and even private app inventors. Collectively, these analyses will inform the programs, policies and infrastructure needed at neighbourhood and district levels to achieve a truly sustainable energy system and meet an ambitious 2050 target of 80 per cent emissions reductions.

As we strive to create energy efficient cities, municipalities should look to energy reporting requirements as one of the first steps to lowering energy consumption on a substantial scale and addressing the dangerous consequences of climate change. Ontario has said good-bye to King Coal. Now it’s time to say good-bye to energy waste in buildings and power up efficiencies instead.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines the act of sustainable building as “the practice of creating and using healthier and more resource-efficient models of construction, renovation, operation, maintenance and demolition.”

From an environmental perspective, the opportunities have long been understood. The EPA estimates that buildings represent 39 per cent of total energy use, 12 per cent of total water consumption, 68 per cent of total electricity consumption and 38 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.

Increasingly, however, the decision to build green is being driven by economics. More tenants are demanding “green” work spaces to boost employee productivity and bolster their brands, while property owners are lured to the lower operating costs and the market premium attached to such assets.

It’s why 94 per cent of architects, engineers, contractors and other building consultants are now involved in some level of green building, according to McGraw-Hill Construction’s 2013 World Green Building Trends report. Of this group, more than half are expected to get the majority of their business from certifiably green projects by 2015. The largest growth in activity is expected to come from new commercial building construction, followed by retrofits.

Impressively, in 2012 green building represented an estimated 38 per cent of all project activity worldwide. “This research suggests that green has become a business imperative,” Harvey Bernstein, a vice-president at McGraw-Hill Construction, wrote in the opening of the report.

The bar on efficiency, of course, will continue to rise alongside the demand for smaller environmental footprints. Innovation will play a key role, both around the technologies embraced and the creative ways to finance greener building construction. Beyond slapping solar panels on a rooftop or installing a high-efficiency boiler in the basement, below are some areas that CK is closely watching:

Green concrete

The 3.6 billion metric tons of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) produced each year is responsible for about 6 per cent of human-caused CO2 emissions worldwide. Half of that cement is used as a main ingredient in concrete blocks, foundations and other products that are key materials in building construction.

Many companies have emerged with processes and products that lower the environmental footprint of the concrete used in buildings. This includes concrete formulas and manufacturing processes that reduce water and energy use and overall emissions.

CeraTech USA, for example, has an OPC-free concrete product made from 95 per cent fly ash and a renewable liquid additive that it refers to as its secret sauce. Since no Portland cement is used in its process, a major source of CO2 emissions is completely eliminated. The Virginia-based company says its process also uses 50 per cent less water.

Some other innovators in the space include U.K.-based Green Concrete Products, which makes concrete from a variety of renewable materials and waste ingredients, from fly ash to household waste to old vehicle tires; and CarbonCure Technologies, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which uses waste CO2 as an ingredient that is injected (i.e., sequestered) into concrete as it’s being cured.

The market for green concrete – whatever the flavour – is expected to increase at a compounded annual growth rate of 21.3 per cent between 2010 and 2018, according to a recent report from research firm Global Industry Analysts.

Born again wood

Why chop down trees when previously used lumber or rediscovered wood can do the job just fine? For building developers aiming to achieve the LEED green building certification for their projects, using so-called reclaimed wood during construction is one way to earn extra credits.

This is now big business, and Triton Logging of Saanichton, British Columbia, is among several companies supplying growing demand for previously used or “lost” wood. Triton estimates there are 300 million trees worldwide that have been submerged in areas flooded by hydro dams. It has developed machines that harvest these water-trapped trees, which are then sold and processed into lumber products.

Some companies, such as Barnwood Industries of Bend, Oregon, reclaim wood from abandoned barns and other old wooden structures. The products made from this wood are in such high demand that building materials giant Weyerhaeuser agreed in 2012 to become exclusive distributor of Barnwood’s products, which include reclaimed beams, timbers and wood flooring.

Viridian Wood Products of Portland, Oregon, looks beyond the barn. It began in 2004 by reclaiming and upcycling wood from shipping pallets and crates discarded at local shipyards. It will now take in all sorts of scrap lumber and turn it into high-value flooring, decking and panelling products.

Advanced Automation

You may have heard of the coming “Internet of things,” but what you probably haven’t heard is that most of those “things” are going to be sensors and other devices scattered throughout buildings and connected to building automation systems. Those systems are there to control lighting, heating, cooling and ventilation, with the objective of assuring comfort and safety while also reducing energy costs.

Sensors designed to sniff out CO2 from breathing or to detect motion in a room can instruct a building automation system to turn off lights and ceiling fans or adjust cooling and heating to lower energy consumption. Likewise, cleverly placed photo sensors can control inside lighting to achieve balance throughout the day with natural sunlight.

An individual building could potentially house thousands of sensors and controls. If all those things needed to be hard-wired to communicate and receive power, the costs of installing them would be prohibitive. The economics significantly improved, however, with the proliferation of energy-harvesting wireless sensors from companies such as EnOcean of Germany. These wireless sensors are powered by motion, heat or sunlight, meaning they don’t require a battery.

The number of wireless sensors or “nodes” for use with building controls is growing dramatically. Annual worldwide shipments are expected to exceed 36 million units by 2020, according to Navigant Research. But as Navigant points out, “The majority of sensors currently used in buildings are considered dumb – that is, they are incapable of making intelligent decisions in real time.”

In other words, as the data tsunami grows larger there is a need to put more intelligence into building automation systems, particularly energy management systems. Johnson Controls, Schneider Electric, Siemens and United Technologies are among the leaders in a growing field of technology suppliers focused on making buildings smarter.

Others are carving out a niche. Encino, California-based Cyber Rain, for example, has developed a smart controller for irrigation of landscaped commercial property. The controller, which can be operated remotely, automatically checks weather predictions over the Internet and adjusts watering schedules accordingly. This can result in up to a 40 per cent reduction in water use, the company says.

Efficient Products

Controlling devices and appliances efficiently is one thing, but just as important is the efficiency of the item itself – from air conditioners and air blowers to boilers and lighting.

Take the underappreciated ceiling fan. Used strategically in open spaces with higher clearance, ceiling fans can significantly reduce heating and cooling costs in a building. Like any fan, they don’t actually create cold or heat. What they do is improve circulation and, in the case of cooling, create a wind-chill effect on the skin so that air conditioners don’t have to work as hard.

When that fan is also built to operate with high efficiency, the cost savings over time can be compelling. Big Ass Fans from Lexington, Kentucky, for example, has built its reputation on the efficiency of its ceiling fans. Its bamboo-made Haiku fan is rated one of the most efficient ceiling fans in the world by Energy Star standards. When a fleet of such fans is controlled by a building energy management system – turning on and off only when people are around – energy savings can be substantial.

Efficient lighting is also a key consideration, and here the trend clearly favours light-emitting diode (LED) systems. As Navigant reports, “The market for commercial lighting is on the verge of a major transformation.” It cites falling LED prices and improved quality as driving widespread adoption. “The speed of this transformation promises to be faster than previous transformations to new lamp types, as this one technology appears likely to surpass all others in nearly every metric of quality and efficiency.”

General Electric, Philips, Osram and newcomers such as Cree are leading the charge, and commercial building owners are beginning to follow. They like the fact that LED lighting systems consume far less energy, are easy to control and dim, contain no mercury, and emit considerably less heat than traditional lighting.

One of the biggest benefits is reduced labour costs. Because the lights are durable and last for a long time, building maintenance crews spend considerably less time on ladders switching out bulbs that no longer work.

Creative financing

Innovation around green buildings isn’t just about product. Difficulty financing energy-efficiency retrofits has also been a huge barrier. Over the past few years, however, more options have emerged for hesitant building owners that ease the pain of upfront investments. In all cases, the goal is for retrofit costs to be more than covered by the long-term energy savings achieved.

The concept isn’t new. So-called energy service companies, or ESCOs, have existed for the past three decades to help commercial, municipal and other public-sector building owners, such as universities, schools and hospitals, pay for retrofits that result in permanent savings. Through instruments such as energy performance contracts, ESCOs pay for retrofits and then receive monthly payments based on the energy savings. If designed properly, the ESCO makes a healthy profit.

Johnson Controls, Honeywell, Siemens and Lockheed Martin are among the bigger companies with ESCO units. Some smaller firms, such as Ecosystem, go beyond the low-hanging fruit and push for “deep” energy retrofits that result in what Ecosystem calls “high-performance buildings that are worth more, cost less and have appealing, healthy spaces.”

Ecosystem takes what it considers a holistic approach that includes detailed analysis of heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and other key building systems. The company notes that average energy reductions achieved from its retrofit projects amount to about 30 per cent. Others focus on specific systems. Lighting giant Philips, for example, recently launched a lighting-as-a-service model anchored by the deployment of its own LED lighting products. Along with making this option available to commercial building owners, the company is pursuing deals with municipalities looking to retrofit streetlight assets with LED fixtures.

In addition to the ESCO model, other financing options include Property Assessed Clean Energy, through which municipalities provide low-interest loans to property owners interested in energy-efficient retrofits. Those loans are paid back through a charge on property tax bills that, if a project is properly designed, will be lower than monthly energy savings achieved. Likewise, many utilities are offering on-billing financing to assist building owners seeking capital but reluctant to tie up their own balance sheets.

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