HUD is helping more than 1,500 HUD-assisted properties across the United States benchmark their energy and water usage through our Multifamily Benchmarking Initiative. If your property isn’t participating, you can visit our website for more information or email MFBenchmarking@hud.gov to sign up today. In addition to receiving help with gathering utility information, communicating with utilities, and data input and verification, properties participating in this program will also receive a tailored Energy and Water Usage Analysis report.
One barrier to benchmarking for multifamily buildings is limited access to whole-building data for buildings with tenant accounts. More than 75 utilities are leading the way by adding up the total energy used at in multifamily buildings and providing the aggregate data. This enables owners and management agents to track information about a building’s consumption and performance that can inform strategic investments in their property or across their portfolios, while also protecting tenant data privacy.
In January 2024, HUD, DOE, and EPA released a joint letter urging utilities to help address data availability as we strive to make residential buildings more resource- and cost-efficient. Furthering this work, the EPA’s Whole-Building Energy Data Access Campaign, has identified 23 utilities that serve markets with the greatest unmet need for whole-building energy data. In early 2025, the EPA will begin convening virtual meetings where building owners, utility decision makers, and other stakeholders can discuss the need for this information and ways to increase access to it. If you are a stakeholder who’d like to stay engaged, please contact EPA at datacampaign@energystar.gov. Please include the utilities you are interested in and how many of your buildings are served by each of those utilities.
We look forward to continued collaboration with our municipal and private partners to achieve efficiency goals and support the preservation of affordable housing.