By: Victoria Kourkoutis
In New York City, buildings account for nearly 70% of the City’s emissions. Introduced in 2019 as the centerpiece of the Climate Mobilization Act, Local Law 97 set an ambitious course for reducing building emissions in NYC. Starting in 2025, Local Law 97 requires covered buildings to meet Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission limits and report their emissions annually.
As an equally unprecedented and historic piece of legislation, it is important to reflect on the results a year later. Since reporting requirements went into effect in 2025 (reporting 2024CY data), 95% of the properties required to file submitted their reports. Of those reports submitted, 95% were below their emissions limits. These results were presented by the Department of Buildings (DOB) during Urban Green Council’s webinar Local Law 97: Year One Results with NYC DOB.
DOB attributes the positive results to significant meaningful engagement with service providers, building owners, property managers, and consultants. The Office of Building Energy and Emissions Performance (OBEEP) at DOB hosted weekly and biweekly meetings to answer questions in real time and worked closely with service providers to ensure complete and accurate reporting. In addition to the outreach by DOB, the NYC Sustainability Help Center (SHC) provides live one-on-one assistance for the City’s sustainability and building energy policies. The NYC Accelerator is a free program dedicated to supporting building owners in pursuing energy upgrades by exploring financing opportunities and connecting property owners with vetted service providers.
Properties unable to meet their emissions limits had the option to file a good-faith effort request demonstrating their efforts to lower emissions. Good-Faith-Effort requests demonstrate an actionable pathway for reducing building emissions and are accompanied by a financing plan. Interestingly enough, the City received much fewer good-faith-effort requests, corroborating the high rates of compliance.
Key Takeaways
- Multifamily buildings were the most common Article 320 building use type and achieved a 95% filing and compliance rate.
- Colleges and Universities were the only category to achieve 100% filing and compliance rate.
- Manhattan had the highest filing and compliance rate and accounted for nearly half of the Article 320 buildings,
- Staten Island had the lowest filing rate and the lowest number of buildings required to file.
- Understanding geographic differences is important for directing outreach efforts and technical assistance going forward.
The results from LL97’s first reporting year will establish a baseline for informing the year two review process. For a deeper dive on the year one LL97 data, read Urban Green Council’s “Year One Local Law 97 Results: Four key takeaways” and read the DOB’s full report here.