San Francisco’s ‘Benchmarking’ Was First in California; State Will Follow

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Barry Hooper directs the green building program for San Francisco. Photo by Ron Armstrong/San Francisco Department of the Environment

By Julie Cart, CALmatters.org

Barry Hooper’s co-workers can be forgiven if they try to avoid him in the office. No one wants to be fingered as an energy hog.

Hooper manages San Francisco’s 5-year-old building-efficiency ordinance, created to measure wasted energy in the city’s largest structures, give them a score the public can see and prod owners to lower the lights and the thermostats.

Actually, the program is going so well that the soft-spoken bureaucrat rarely needs to raise his voice. “There’s no energy police,” Hooper said, laughing.

Read the complete story at CALmatters.org.

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