These businesses in big buildings cut energy, saved money. Miami-Dade wants more to join
Miami-Dade County faces a monumental battle to slash its emissions fast enough to do its part to slow down climate change — and a significant part of its strategy may rest on whether people are willing to use less energy.
While new-tech solutions like electric cars and solar panels get a lot of attention, a key to cutting greenhouse gases is pure old school. The county needs its residents and businesses, particularly managers of its bigger buildings, to follow the lessons just about every frugal parent preaches: Turn off unused lights and don’t mess with the thermostat. It’s been set to save energy (and money).
Buildings produce 41% of the county’s greenhouse gas emissions every year, the second-biggest after transportation. Slashing that number is key to meeting the county’s goals to release far fewer planet-warming pollutants.
“Everybody here knows we have to work together to meet our resilience goals,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a roomful of business owners and building managers last week at an awards ceremony for businesses that significantly cut emissions in the previous year.
Some of the winners included Miami Beach City Hall, Federation Towers and 355 Alhambra; each topped their category in the most energy and water saved in 2021.
More than 50 buildings participated in the “BE305 Challenge” last year, and organizers said they’re hoping for 100 more in 2022. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the 12,200 big buildings targeted in Miami-Dade’s climate action strategy for energy efficiency boosts.
“We’ll need commitments from many, many more, new and old buildings,” Levine Cava told the crowd.
In the city of Miami, buildings 20,000 square feet or bigger must measure their energy use and buildings 50,000 square feet or bigger must work to slash it or face penalties, according to an ordinance passed last summer. A similar ordinance at the county level hasn’t gone very far.
Miami-Dade Chief Resilience Officer Jim Murley said his team worked on the ordinance for a while but recently decided to prioritize other potential ordinances instead. He applauded Miami for its new law, which mirrors one in Orlando.
“Maybe from watching their experience we can fine-tune ours,” he said. “When we try to do this thing countywide with all the municipalities there are a lot more questions.”
Participants involved in the competition saved tens of thousands of dollars by re-examining everything from the kinds of light bulbs they used to the temperature they kept their buildings
Lexus of West Kendall — where all cars are kept inside in air conditioning — used to spend about $155,365 a year on energy. After a county-sponsored audit, the building manager spent about $19,000 replacing outdated equipment and changing settings. That cut the power bill by 10%, saving about $ 70,574 a year.
“This program has kind of opened our eyes to what’s next,” said John Alvarez, procurement and facilities director of Bean Automotive Group, which owns the dealership. “We’re looking forward to doing it in our other five buildings.”
If thousands of other big buildings in the county follow their lead, Miami-Dade has a shot of meeting its goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. Marta Marello, a resilience energy analyst with the county’s office of resilience, said reducing energy use is “step number one” in that process.
“Increasing energy efficiency is sometimes called the third fuel,” she said. “You want to make sure that you have a very efficient building to start with in case you’re hoping to procure renewable energy.”
Marello, who helps run the BE305 challenge, said the series of workshops it offers to businesses focuses on free and low-cost changes that make a big impact and save businesses money.
“As a starting point, it seems so easy and so immediate. Why wouldn’t you want to do it?” she said.
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
