Policies for Better Buildings

This report by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) outlines how cities can reduce carbon emissions from existing buildings through the strategic deployment of energy efficiency and distributed renewable energy systems, highlighting a specific case study of a cost-optimized point-of-sale policy.

• Cities can achieve significant carbon reductions, job creation, and tax revenue increases by packaging multiple policy elements together to deploy energy efficiency and distributed renewable energy systems in existing buildings, which are identified as the largest source of carbon emissions for cities.
• The use of citywide models to evaluate policies and understand baseline energy consumption is essential for determining the potential impact and efficacy of policies targeting existing buildings.
• RMI's collaboration with a tier 1 city resulted in a cost-optimized point-of-sale policy that, when combined with existing policies, is projected to reduce CO2e emissions in the buildings sector by 67 percent and generate more than $4 billion in lifetime energy cost savings. This supports the city's objective to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

APA

RMI (2018). Policies for Better Buildings. https://rmi.org/resources/policies-for-better-buildings/

Chicago

RMI. Policies for Better Buildings. 2018. https://rmi.org/resources/policies-for-better-buildings/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Policies for Better Buildings |date=13 August 2018 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/policies-for-better-buildings/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2018policies, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Policies for Better Buildings}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2018}, month = aug, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/policies-for-better-buildings/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }