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This Fact Sheet provides an overview of the Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines project. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) are working with industry stakeholders to develop voluntary national guidelines that will improve the quality and consistency of commercial building workforce training and certification programs for five key energy-related jobs.

While the availability of “big data” about building energy performance is increasing in response to market demands and public policies, the lack of standard data formats is a significant ongoing barrier to its full utilization. To overcome this barrier, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) developed the Building Energy Data Exchange Specification (BEDES).

BEDES is designed to enable the exchange, comparison, and combination of empirical information by providing common terms and definitions for data about commercial and residential building’s physical and operational characteristics, energy use, and efficiency measures.

This paper describes the BEDES development process, scope, structure, and plans for implementation and ongoing updates.

The Commercial Building Energy Alliances sponsor supplier summits, which allow commercial building owners and operators to communicate their energy-efficiency needs directly to suppliers of building equipment.

The Commercial Building Energy Alliances sponsor supplier summits, which allow commercial building owners and operators to communicate their energy-efficiency needs directly to suppliers of building equipment.

The scorecard provides a spreadsheet template for collecting and tracking building data related to energy performance modeling.

This guide discusses how to achieve greater energy efficiency through occupancy behavior analysis and energy auditing to create targeted and strategic behavior change.

This guide explains the benefits and process of building commissioning thereby providing owners and other stakeholders a tool to improve building efficiency and operation. It is intended to be a resource, as well as a call to action, for building owners and facility managers who want to verify their buildings are not only operating as originally intended, but also as efficiently as possible. Commissioning of new construction and major renovations is the primary focus, although commissioning of existing buildings is also briefly discussed as well.

A brief introduction to Operations and Maintenance, the potential energy savings involved, and referral to the O&M Best Practices guide.