A new path forward for real estate sustainability

Our industry is engaged in an important dialogue to improve the efficiency and resilience of real assets through transparency and industry collaboration. This article is a contribution to this larger conversation and does not necessarily reflect GRESB’s position.

This article was sponsored by Measurabl as part of the GRESB Quarterly, Americas newsletter.

The questions raised by the potential end of ENERGY STAR are worth asking no matter what comes next.

The proposed elimination of ENERGY STAR (ESTAR) under the U.S. administration’s FY2026 budget has forced the real estate industry to go beyond mere contingency planning to contemplate its energy and sustainability future in ways it never has before.

While best known for consumer appliance labels, ESTAR has an often overlooked component: a software product called ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager (ESPM) that acts as the backbone of energy and sustainability data management and benchmarking for the North American commercial real estate industry.

ESPM has supported over 330,000 buildings across 35 billion square feet of North American real estate—allowing building owners to upload data and receive a “1-100” benchmark in return, along with many other benefits. For example, ESPM powers a variety of green loan programs from HUD to Fannie Mae, supports compliance with more than sixty state and local building energy performance standards, and facilitates institutional-grade reporting to all stripes of real estate stakeholders. And it’s the basis for the famed ENERGY STAR certification program that helps qualified real estate owners distinguish their building from a competing one down the street in terms of energy efficiency.

Offered at no cost to users (taxpayers cover the cost), ESPM delivered significant returns—USD350 in energy savings for every USD1 invested, according to EPA estimates. A phenomenal ROI by any measure.

But ESPM wasn’t conceived in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape or climate disclosure requirements, let alone one where climate, carbon and environmental business imperatives have become political footballs.

So, as the government signals its intention to pull the plug, the real estate industry has to consider an unprecedented question: If a new way forward is needed, what should that look like?

This is a provocative question for sure—and not one the industry was not, at least initially, eager to answer.

ESTAR has long been viewed as too essential, too embedded, and too bipartisan to challenge. Many have argued it couldn’t function outside of government, and that maintaining the status quo was the safest path. But the world has changed. New rules apply. A new mindset is required to shape what’s next.

After all, the stakes are bigger than ESPM or ESTAR overall—they cut to the underlying business case of sustainability and how that should be evolved and improved. To date, the ROI of sustainability hasn’t been obvious outside its silo. It has been treated as a specialized overlay—producing “green” variants of traditional real estate transactions like loans, leases, or appraisals.

Real transformation will only happen when value-creating sustainability KPIs are baked into the everyday mechanics of underwriting, valuation, and capital allocation, just like rent rolls or tenant credit. This shift will require high-quality, standardized, and timely data—not just to check a compliance box, but to reduce cost of capital, mitigate risk, and increase asset value. That’s the underlying business case for sustainability—and where real estate must go next. Measured sustainability performance drives tangible business outcomes.

Asking tough questions about what the industry needs isn’t just necessary—it’s smart for business. Here is where we should focus as we plan a path forward, informed by what we’ve heard from customers and partners:

1. Funding: Should the real estate industry rely on taxpayers to fund its critical data infrastructure?
2. Benchmarking: Should our benchmark be set by CBECS, a once-every-several-year survey that covers a small set of buildings?
3. Politics: Should mission-critical data rest with the government when governments are in the business of politics?
4. Globalization: Should our tools be designed only for North America when the real estate business is global?
5. Pace and breadth of innovation: Is the U.S. government best placed to deliver the pace and magnitude of innovation required by the complexities of real estate operations let alone vast and constantly evolving regulatory requirements?

Regardless of what happens, these are good questions to ask. When we’ve posed them to our customers, many of them GRESB Participants, and some of the world’s largest and most influential real estate owners and investors, we’ve heard a fairly consistent response.

First, R&D investment must be commensurate with the scale of the sector (world’s largest asset class) and the magnitude of its climate impact (world’s largest carbon emitter). Second, benchmarks should be dynamic and continuously updated using modern tools like data science and AI—not based on infrequent surveys like CBECS. Third, real estate’s global nature does in fact demand a global solution—tools that reduce translation barriers between owners, investors, and regulators. Last, but far from exhaustively, business data must remain apolitical—it should not be exposed to the whims of any administration. Not now, not ever.

Taking stock of these questions and feedback from industry starts to put contour to a path forward—with or without ESPM. We’ve distilled it down to five core pillars:

1. For industry, by industry
   Real estate must shape its own data destiny. The new benchmark should be governed by its core users—owners, operators, lenders, governments, etc.—while engaging public-private partnerships to ensure adoption. A durable, effective benchmark requires collaboration across the full ecosystem of market participants.
2. Market-driven innovation
   The industry’s digital infrastructure must keep pace with evolving market needs and leverage all the modern tools and capabilities, like AI, at our disposal in doing so.
3. Globally referenceable
   Real estate is a global asset class. Standards must be consistent, interoperable, and applicable across borders. The ecosystem should empower stakeholders to contribute, consume, and act across platforms and policy regimes.
4. Agnostic
   To advance a market as large as real estate we need everyone aligned. That means any organization that contributes value (data from owners, for example), or adds value to that data (sustainability apps, service providers, etc.), should be able to participate.
5. Sustainable business model
   The core functionality that is required to deliver on these pillars must continue to be offered at no cost. In order to deliver the level of innovation demanded by industry it must also have authentic and transparent revenue streams that increase ROI from sustainability.

Perhaps ESTAR’s greatest achievement may be the example it set—proving what’s possible when energy performance and sustainability are measured and benchmarked. That progress is evident in our latest Intelligence report, which draws on Measurabl’s global dataset and reveales steady reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across U.S. real estate across seven asset classes since 2019, ranging from 14% to 29%. No doubt ENERGY STAR played a role.

This legacy will endure no matter what the future holds for ESTAR. Similarly, the questions and guiding pillars outlined above also remain relevant and pressing.

Measurabl recognizes the potential sunset of ESPM would be massively disruptive. We take this risk seriously. As a long-standing GRESB Global Partner, we’ve helped industry leaders and first-time reporters navigate the complexities of the GRESB Standards, turning sustainability goals into measurable business outcomes. And, as a six-time ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year and one of the world’s most widely adopted sustainability data platforms, our minimum responsibility is not just to clearly communicate what’s at stake, but to act.

As long as ESPM remains active, every real estate organization should take steps to safeguard their data. Measurabl has made that simple by providing contingency options, including a new, free account option that automatically syncs with ESPM to back up your information.

We’ve also opened up a variety of other, powerful tools at no cost so you can not just backup your data but also work with it to continue critical business activities like benchmarking, reporting, quality assurance, and more including:

• Sync with ENERGY STAR seamlessly and continuously  or bulk upload your data.
• Calculate Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
• Track carbon, water, and waste in line with GRESB and other standards
• Auto-capture audits, certifications, and retrofits
• Set goals for energy, carbon, and waste—and stay on track
• Visualize and analyze data over time at the asset and portfolio level
• Quality assure by identifying potential errors to ensure accuracy
• Benchmark your assets vs peers and market standards like BEPS
• Export and share data securely—by building or portfolio.

For existing Measurabl customers, your data is safe, secure, and backed up in Measurabl, as always.

We will stay flexible and vigilant, and are prepared to take additional actions to ensure the industry is supported no matter what comes, or when.

This is a pivotal moment for real estate. It’s not just about ENERGY STAR—it’s about considering what we want from it or any new system. We are prepared to step up and step in in alignment with these core pillars and in consultation with industry.

Collectively, we have to ask a new, critical question—not just about what comes next—but what change do we want? Asking that question is essential if ENERGY STAR goes away, but even more important if it stays.

This article was written by Matt Ellis, CEO & Co-founder, at Measurabl. Learn more about Measurabl here.