Report: For Better Buildings, We Need Better Data

The massive Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS)—akin to the U.S. Census but for building energy performance—has underpinned a number of key policies and building certification programs for years. While a major blow, the recent loss of new CBECS data due to funding reasons (see “Key Energy Data Hit Hard by Federal Budget Cuts,” EBN May 2011) has led to a conversation about how we can better collect data to support better building performance—and to some new initiatives as well.