Wisconsin has one city with a local benchmarking ordinance that affects privately-owned buildings.

Voluntary Benchmarking Ordinance: Madison, WI

On September 1, 2015, the Madison Common Council voted to support creation of a voluntary benchmarking program to encourage building owners to improve their energy management practices and cut energy costs.

Title: Madison Voluntary Energy Use Benchmarking Program

Date Passed: September 1, 2015

Policy Language: RES-15-00725

Assistance: Not yet available.

Summary:

After nearly two years of work, including an originally-proposed mandatory benchmarking ordinance, the Madison Common Council agreed to support the creation of a voluntary benchmarking program in September 2015 upon recommendation from the Ad Hoc Sustainable Benchmarking Committee. The program is intended to reduce overall building energy consumption of 50% by 2030 in public and private sector buildings when combined with other efforts, and will include an outreach/education plan, incentives for compliance and upgrades and a third party private entity that will collect and store the data. The Assessor’s Office is required to produce a report ranking all commercial buildings and an annual report on benchmarking goals to be reviewed by Sustainable Madison Committee and presented to the Common Council. The goal of the benchmarking program shall be to achieve 90 percent compliance by December 31, 2020 of commercial buildings larger than a minimum target that falls between the range of 25,000 sq. ft. to 50,000 sq. ft. (with an exact minimum to be determined using the Assessor’s Office report). The voluntary public/private energy benchmarking program shall be developed by the City Energy by January 1, 2016. On March 15, 2016, the city of Madison authorized a $190,000 contract with Cool Choices, Inc. to implement a comprehensive Voluntary Energy Use Benchmarking Program in collaboration with Seventhwave, Rapid Improvement Associates and Sustain Dane.

According to the Resolution, the targets for the voluntary program upon its development are the following:

Compliance Deadline	Type of Building	Building Size Threshold
90% Compliance by Voluntary Measures, by December 31, 2020	Municipal	Somewhere between 25,000-50,000 sq.ft. (to be determined) and larger
90% Compliance by Voluntary Measures, by December 31, 2020	Commercial	Somewhere between 25,000-50,000 sq.ft. (to be determined) and larger