Description

Presenters: Herbert Dwyer, EMPEQ and Jim Schafer, Nenni and Associates

 America needs to decarbonize over 7,000 buildings every day for the next 28 years if we are to reach our 2050 climate goals. To reach this monumental challenge, there have been several major societal investments to ameliorate this daunting situation. The federal government’s Inflation Reduction Act and its plans to invest $100s of billions in clean and efficient energy has rightly captured many of the headlines. However, perhaps just as noteworthy are the steps regulatory bodies and local governments have taken to make this moonshot a reality. Specifically, the SEC is very likely to require all non-small reporting companies (SRCs) to provide annual greenhouse gas emissions disclosures starting in 2024; President Biden issued Executive Order 13990 requiring all federal agencies to incorporate greenhouse gas emissions into performance metrics; and cities across the United States including NYC, Seattle, and Chicago are instituting local laws to fine building owners for excess emissions and/or require them to provide annual GHG disclosures.

Benchmarking, energy audits, and site surveys are all necessary parts of the process in all of these forthcoming industry changes and, while the aims of these programs are admirable, this will undoubtedly put incredible strain on an energy services industry already suffering from a labor shortage. 

In this presentation, we will explore the skills needed to perform these audits, the state of the energy services labor market, and best practices and existing / future technologies to prepare the industry for this forthcoming challenge.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify and describe and the impact of the SEC ESG Disclosures on the energy services industry (with an emphasis on building audits)
2. Identify and describe and the impact of Executive Order (EO) 13990, (Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis) on the energy services industry (with an emphasis on building audits)
3. Identify and describe and the impact of Local Laws Identify and describe and the impact of the Local Laws on the energy services industry (with an emphasis on building audits)
4. Identify and describe the skill levels needed for different types of energy auditing
5. Identify and describe labor challenges in the energy services industry
6. Identify and describe best practices for energy audits and energy modeling