A New Path Forward for Multifamily Sustainability 

The proposed elimination of Energy Star under the administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget has forced the real estate industry to go beyond mere contingency planning and begin contemplating its energy and sustainability future in ways it never has before. For the multifamily sector, this moment is especially meaningful—not only because Energy Star Portfolio Manager (ESPM) has become the foundation for compliance and performance management, but because residents also recognize the brand on their appliances and expect it as a sign of quality in the furnishings of their homes.

Let’s start with the facts. ESPM has supported more than 330,000 buildings across 35 billion square feet in North America, including a significant portion of the multifamily stock. It allows building owners to upload utility data and receive a score between 1 and 100 that’s foundational for regulatory compliance in many markets, as well as loan programs from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It’s also the system behind Energy Star certification, one of the most widely recognized signals of efficient building performance in the market, serving as a differentiator for resident attraction and retention. Studies find that Energy Star–certified buildings command a premium of up to 16% for sales prices and rental rates.

Offered at no cost to users (taxpayers cover the cost), ESPM has delivered significant returns—$350 in energy savings for every $1 invested, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. A phenomenal return on investment by any measure.

But the Trump administration’s proposal for elimination is prompting a pivotal question: How will we measure and benchmark energy and sustainability if ESPM disappears?

Building Energy Performance Standards in Jeopardy

As a six-time Energy Star Partner of the Year—and the second largest repository of sustainability performance data globally after ESPM—we take its proposed elimination seriously, and are helping the industry navigate today’s uncertainty as well as whatever comes next. 

For multifamily owners and operators, Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) compliance is top of mind. These policies have evolved from voluntary disclosures into enforceable mandates, with emissions caps, compliance deadlines, and real financial penalties. ESPM has become the default way to measure and report against dozens of regulations. But if the platform disappears, most jurisdictions don’t yet have a ready alternative, leaving multifamily stakeholders exposed to uncertainty.

At Measurabl, we support thousands of ordinance submissions annually through our COMPLY offering. Roughly 95% of BPS deadlines fall by June 1, with the remainder due in early July. For 2025, those submissions are on track, and with ESPM funded through at least November, this year’s compliance cycle is not at risk.

But 2026 is less clear. Some BPS laws name ESPM explicitly; others don’t. That means reporting pathways could be interpreted and enforced differently, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. To help bridge that gap, Measurabl is actively working with regulators to shape contingency frameworks and smooth continuity. Through our free account offering, multifamily owners can centralize and manage data across audits, certifications, local ordinances, and retrofit projects—ensuring full visibility and control no matter what policy changes emerge.

Implications for Green Loans

This moment of uncertainty also intersects with a shift in multifamily finance. On one hand, the Trump administration has proposed extending an implicit federal guarantee to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—a move that could reinforce capital stability and secure access to green lending. On the other, the proposed elimination of Energy Star would undermine the infrastructure those programs rely on to evaluate, underwrite, and monitor sustainable investments.

Fannie Mae, which has allocated more than $80 billion in green loans, and Freddie Mac have long used ESPM to qualify and track performance. ESPM provides the standardized, third-party data lenders need to assess risk, ensure eligibility, and monitor outcomes across thousands of properties. Without it, verifying sustainability performance becomes harder to scale, less credible, and more fragmented, introducing risk not just for borrowers, but for the financial system underwriting these investments.

At the same time, the ROI of sustainability remains siloed. It’s often treated as a bolt-on, creating “green” versions of traditional transactions like loans, leases, or appraisals. But that approach limits systemic progress and is precisely the mindset we need to move beyond. 

Real transformation will happen only when value-driving sustainability KPIs, such as energy use and GHG emissions intensity, and climate risk are embedded into mainstream underwriting, valuation, and capital allocation, just like rent rolls or tenant credit. These metrics must become standard inputs.

Getting there requires investment in high-quality, standardized, and investment-grade data, supported by modern, industry-led infrastructure—not just for compliance, but to lower cost of capital, mitigate risk, and unlock long-term value. It also creates an opportunity for green lending to evolve and become more sophisticated, shifting from static program requirements to performance-based models grounded in timely, asset-level benchmarks. 

That’s the true business case for sustainability and it’s where multifamily must go next, taking back control over its data destiny. 

So the real question we should be asking in light of the proposed dismantling of Energy Star is, if it does in fact go away, what should come next?

A Question We’re Forced to Consider

The consensus has long been that Energy Star is too big, too entrenched in industry, too bipartisan to call into question. 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 in a new world that calls for taking on tough questions.

Here’s what I’ve heard from our customers and partners, which includes many of the world’s premiere real estate owners and operators. It all distills down to five key questions:

1. Funding: Should the real estate industry rely on taxpayers to fund its critical data infrastructure?
2. Benchmarking: Should our benchmark be set by CBECS, a once-every-several-year survey that covers a small set of buildings? 
3. Politics: Should mission-critical data rest with the government when governments are in the business of politics? 
4. Globalization: Should our tools be designed only for North America when the real estate business is global? 
5. Pace and Breadth of Innovation: Is the U.S. government best placed to deliver the pace and magnitude of innovation required by the world’s largest assets class—real estate—let alone vast and constantly evolving operational and regulatory complexities?

Regardless of what happens, these are good questions to ask. When we’ve posed them to our customers, many of them with multifamily owners, we’ve heard a consistent response.

A New Path Forward

That response puts contour to our possible path forward, with or without Energy Star. We’ve distilled it down to five core pillars:

1. For Industry, by Industry: Real estate must shape its own data destiny. The new benchmark should be governed by its core users—owners, operators, lenders, governments, etc.—while engaging public-private partnerships to ensure adoption. A durable, effective benchmark requires collaboration across the full ecosystem of market participants.
2. Market-Driven Innovation: The industry’s digital infrastructure must keep pace with evolving market needs and leverage all the modern tools and capabilities, like artificial intelligenc, at our disposal in doing so.
3. 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.
4. Agnostic: Scaling a market as large as real estate requires broad alignment. That means any organization that contributes value (data from owners, for example), or adds value to that data (sustainability apps, service providers, etc.), should be able to participate. 
5. Sustainable Business Model: The core functionality that is required to deliver on these pillars must continue to be offered at no cost. In order to deliver the level of innovation demanded by industry it must also have authentic and transparent revenue streams that increase ROI from sustainability.

This is a pivotal time for the real estate industry, and multifamily, in particular, is more exposed than most because of the degree to which green lending, BEPS, and resident considerations apply. The way we’ve measured value, managed compliance, and structured capital may change. This isn’t just a moment of disruption, it’s also an opportunity to define what we want next whether that be delivered by the government or something else altogether. Asking that question is essential if Energy Star goes away, and even more so if it stays.