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Empire Building Challenge

 

Showcasing Decarbonization Projects for Office and Multifamily High-Rises

The Empire Building Challenge (EBC) is a public-private partnership between NYSERDA and leading commercial and multifamily real estate owners that is elevating new design approaches for low-carbon retrofits in New York’s tallest buildings. Through demonstration projects across New York State, EBC showcases best-in-class resource efficient decarbonization strategies (RED). The EBC also provides comprehensive resources and a knowledge-sharing platform, the Retrofit Playbook for Large Buildings Link opens in new window - close new window to return to this page., to support building owners, operators, and their engineering and design teams in creating realistic decarbonization roadmaps, and in making the business case for technically and financially viable solutions.

EBC partners represent over 20% of commercial office space in New York City and oversee more than 200,000 housing units. These partners have committed to decarbonize over 125 million square feet and 1,500+ units of affordable housing.

Learn More About the Empire Building Challenge

Challenge the Status Quo

We challenge the real estate, construction, engineering, and design communities to change the status quo for large building retrofits. Our goal is to harness our partners’ commitments and unleash the collective creativity of the world’s leading R&D, architecture, engineering, and manufacturing teams.

EBC demonstration projects emphasize transformative decarbonization technologies, achieve meaningful energy use intensity (EUI) and carbon reduction, and create pathways for others to replicate successes while minimizing risk. These retrofit projects reveal economically and technically feasible approaches to inform strategies for property owners and facilities teams, from decarbonizing heating loads, to increasing flexibility of a building’s energy demand and reducing tenant-driven consumption.

This retrofit activity will introduce new technologies to the New York market, set new design standards for the high-rise building market, and create green jobs of the future.

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