Purpose and goals
In 2020 Portland City Council declared a climate emergency, calling on the City to reduce our carbon emissions at least 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
With nearly half of the carbon emissions we produce locally coming from the heating, cooling and powering of our existing buildings, we must eliminate carbon emissions from homes and commercial buildings to reach Portland’s adopted target of zero emissions by 2050. But how?
Climate and health standards are one of the tools local governments have to decarbonize buildings. Boston, Denver, New York, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and the state of Washington, have building performance standards in place already. And the City of Portland joined these cities and more than 20 others in the National Building Performance Standards Coalition.
To develop a policy concept for climate and health standards in Portland, the City committed to a deeper level of social inclusion. That’s because Black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) are often the communities least responsible for contributing to climate change — yet they are disproportionately affected by its impacts.
Portland followed a community-led engagement model, the Zero Cities Project, co-created with community partners to elevate the voices and decision-making power of BIPOC communities and close the racial justice gap. With them, we advanced our climate justice commitment in various ways, including two flagship efforts: the Climate Justice Initiative and Build/Shift Collective. These are new models of collaborative and community governance for climate action, which the City of Portland is supporting and learning from.
In keeping with BIPOC community priorities, we have chosen to use the term “climate and health standards” to show that our building performance policy approach addresses more than just carbon emissions.
Developing standards for existing buildings
Climate and health-related performance standards for existing buildings are requirements, in this case expressed in policies adopted by City Council. These policies would only apply to existing rental apartments as well as large commercial and multifamily buildings. Buildings covered by these policy requirements would have to meet minimum standards for the building’s carbon emissions, indoor air quality, and indoor temperature by certain dates.
But unlike prescriptive approaches that tell building owners what to do in a top-down manner, performance standards are flexible and customizable. Performance standards allow building owners the autonomy and flexibility to meet compliance targets in the best way for them. Each decision-maker can follow the pathways that are the most cost-effective and technically appropriate for the type of building in question and building context.
Another benefit of standards is that they don’t go into effect all at once. Building performance ordinances typically have very long timelines for compliance, with interim compliance dates (e.g., every five years). Portland’s policy proposal will provide a clear path and ample time to comply.
But we know the policy end date is 2050, and the target for carbon emissions from covered buildings by that date is zero.
Stakeholder involvement
The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) convened stakeholders to help refine climate and health standards for existing buildings in 2022 and 2023. Stakeholders included:
- Building owners and manager representatives
- Tenant advocates
- Community organizations
- Climate advocates
- Building scientists and engineers
- Public health experts
- Labor
- Utilities
We will continue to convene with key stakeholders in the development of a draft policy.