Indiana has one city with a local benchmarking ordinance that affects all buildings located in the City of Indianapolis and Marion County.

Indianapolis, IN

In July 2021, the Indianapolis City-County Council passed the Benchmarking and Transparency Ordinance, which was developed by the Office of Sustainability in collaboration with stakeholders from across the city.

Title: Benchmarking and Transparency Ordinance

Date Passed: July 12, 2021

Policy Language: Proposal No. 185, 2021

Assistance: Benchmarking and Transparency Website, How to Benchmark, benchmarking@indy.gov

Summary: 

In 2019, Indianapolis developed and published the first sustainability and resiliency action plan in the City’s history – Thrive Indianapolis. Various City departments, Marion County agencies, community partners and residents all came together to outline 16 key objectives and 59 actions that the city hopes to achieve by 2025 in order to ultimately realize citywide carbon neutrality by 2050. Among these objectives was to develop an energy benchmarking policy. To develop the ordinance, the City's Office of Sustainability undertook a robust stakeholder engagement process, with multiple opportunities for public impact. In July 2021, the Indianapolis City-County Council passed the Benchmarking and Transparency Ordinance,

In 2022, City properties greater than 50,000 square feet were the first to be required to track and submit their energy use, while these obligations remained voluntary for covered non-city properties in the commercial, multifamily and industrial sectors. Regardless of the size requirements for municipal buildings, the city benchmarked as many of its own properties as it could (about 17) in 2022, and 83 non-city properties voluntarily benchmarked their energy consumption that year, as well. These latter properties include the Indianapolis International Airport, the Indianapolis public library system, IU Health and Eskenazi Health, Lucas Oil Stadium, the Indiana Convention Center and the Indianapolis Public Schools, which have been realizing millions of dollars in savings from benchmarking for many years and are a great case study from which other cities can learn.

Beginning in 2023, those non-city buildings greater than 100,000 square feet are now required to benchmark, and the city must make shared benchmarking information available on a publicly accessible website. The information of covered City buildings will be shared first, with other covered buildings starting in 2026. Each following year, the city will publicize a summary of energy consumption statistics, an assessment of compliance rates, accuracy and issues affecting accuracy, changes across the covered properties portfolio over time and trends observed. All data included in the City’s annual benchmarking report will be anonymized.

To promote compliance with the benchmarking ordinance, the City’s Office of Sustainability has hosted free guided workshops, or “Data Jams,” teaching certain building owners and facilities managers how to track utility data within the Energy Star® Portfolio Manager software program. With this guidance, Indianapolis building owners will begin realizing lower utility costs and carbon emissions sooner than they anticipated. The City has also created a number of resources to assist building owners with complying with the ordinance.

Phase	Impacted Buildings	Data Transparency
Phase 1: 2021	Voluntary benchmarking for all buildings	N/A
Phase 2: 2022	Municipal buildings > 50.000 sq. ft. Voluntary for all other building types	N/A
Phase 3: 2023	Municipal buildings > 25,000 sq. ft. All Marion County buildings > 100,000 sq. ft.	Scores for covered city properties
Phase 4: 2024	Municipal buildings > 25,000 sq. ft. All Marion County buildings > 50,000 sq. ft.	Scores for covered city properties
Phase 5: 2025	Municipal buildings > 25,000 sq. ft. All Marion County buildings > 50,000 sq. ft.	Scores for covered city properties Scores for covered properties to be published in 2026