Measurabl’s Vision for the Future Beyond ENERGY STAR
By Matt Ellis, CEO and Co-Founder, Measurabl
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 them to upload data on buildings and receive a “1-100” benchmark in return, along with many other value propositions. For example, ESPM powers a variety of green loan programs from HUD to Fannie Mae, supports compliance with more than 60 state and local building energy performance standards, and facilitates institutional-grade reporting to all stripes of real estate stakeholders. Not to mention 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.
What was the cost of this miraculous tool? Nothing, at least directly—ESPM was entirely free courtesy of taxpayers who, in return, enjoyed a significant return on their investment to the tune of $350 in energy cost savings for every dollar spent (according to the U.S. EPA). A phenomenal ROI to be sure.
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 it wants to pull the plug, the real estate industry is left with a pressing question: what does a new way forward look like?
A Question Worth Asking
To be clear, this is a provocative question and not one the industry was initially interested in asking.
ESTAR is too big, too entrenched in industry, too bi-partisan to call into question, or so goes the consensus thinking. Many well-supported arguments have been made on why the program could not live outside the government, and why status quo is the correct and best outcome. However, we’re clearly in a new world with new rules. High time for new thinking.
So, as the potential of a shutdown is taken more seriously, a new mindset has emerged—one that goes beyond mere contingency planning to ask a more fundamental question: can there be something better?
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:
- Funding: Should the real estate industry rely on taxpayers to fund its critical data infrastructure?
- Benchmarking: Should our benchmark be set by CBECS, a once-every-several-year survey that covers a small set of buildings?
- Politics: Should mission critical data rest with the government when governments are in the business of politics?
- Globalization: Should our tools be designed only for North America when the real estate business is global?
- 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?
A New Path Forward
These are productive questions to ask—regardless of what happens with ESTAR. On that front, here’s what I’ve heard from our customers, which include many of the world’s most prominent real estate organizations, when I ask them these questions.
First, the R&D investment should be very large, befitting the size of the asset class (world’s largest) and the magnitude of its climate impacts (also the largest). Second, benchmarks should be continuously updated using modern tools like data science and AI, not infrequent surveys like CBECS. Third, since real estate is a global industry, it should have global solutions 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.
Distilling all I’ve heard down, five core pillars emerge:
- For Industry, By Industry
Real estate must shape its own data destiny. The new standard should be governed by its core users—owners, operators, and investors—while engaging public-private partnerships to scale adoption. A durable, effective benchmark requires collaboration across the full ecosystem of market participants. - Market-Driven Innovation
The industry’s digital infrastructure must keep pace with evolving market needs and modern tools and capabilities. - 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. - Agnostic
To advance a market as old and 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, should be able to participate. - Sustainable Business Model
The core functionality that is required to deliver on these pillars must continue to be offered at no cost, but in order to return the level of innovation demanded by industry, it must also have additional, authentic, and transparent revenue streams that allow it to continue to thrive in years to come.
But none of these pillars matter unless sustainability is integrated into the core business of real estate.
Measured sustainability performance results in tangible business outcomes. Energy and carbon management are now key drivers of risk and reward, directly linking sustainability efforts to efficiency, cost savings, and asset value.
In retrospect, ENERGY STAR’s greatest success may have come from proving what’s possible in terms of energy and sustainability, and the extraordinary, shared value that can be created from focusing in these areas. In that spirit, the questions and guiding pillars above are useful no matter what happens with ENERGY STAR.
What Real Estate Stakeholders Should Do Today, And How Measurabl Helps
For our part, Measurabl takes seriously any potential discontinuation or diminishment of ESPM. As a six-time ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year and the world’s most widely adopted sustainability data management platform after ESPM the minimum we can do at this juncture is communicate what’s at stake, hence this article, among other communications we have and will continue to issue. But we all need to do more than communicate. We need to act.
Measurabl has done that by providing contingency options, including the ability to create a free Measurabl account and automatically sync it with ESPM to backup data.
We’ve also opened up a variety of powerful tools at no cost so you can work with your data and continue critical business activities. 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 time for the real estate industry. The way we’ve done business for decades may change. We have to ask a new question: what change do we want?
Asking that question is essential if ENERGY STAR goes away, but even more important if it stays.