Objective

To determine whether the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) has taken steps to ensure that private building owners are in compliance with selected aspects of the Climate Mobilization Act (CMA) by the mandated deadlines. The audit covered the period from November 2019 to June 2025.

About the Program

In May 2019, New York City enacted the CMA, a package of legislation containing actions to be taken by the City to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are known to trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

At the core of the CMA is Local Law 97 (LL97) of 2019, which required covered buildings to meet GHG emissions limits beginning in 2024. In total, there are four compliance periods—the first beginning in 2024—with increasingly stringent requirements starting in 2030, 2035, and 2050. The goal is to reduce the emissions produced by the City’s largest buildings by 40% by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions (be carbon neutral) by 2050.

Local Law 84 (LL84) of 2009, as amended by Local Law 133 of 2016, requires owners of buildings that meet the criteria outlined in the law to annually measure their energy consumption through a process called benchmarking. The CMA includes Local Law 95 (LL95) of 2019, which amended Local Law 33 (LL33) of 2018, requiring building owners to post the building’s Energy Efficiency Rating label (energy efficiency label) in a conspicuous location near each public entrance of the building, within 30 days of receiving an energy efficiency score.

DOB is tasked with overseeing CMA implementation and enforcement for privately owned buildings. This is performed by DOB’s Office of Building Energy and Emission Performance, which is required to establish and engage in outreach and education efforts to inform building owners about building emissions limits and compliance, and to provide outreach, education, and training opportunities for building maintenance and operations staff.

Buildings over 25,000 square feet, or multiple buildings on the same tax lot that together exceed 50,000 square feet, are required to comply with LL97. The New York City Department of Finance (DOF) compiles and provides a list of buildings required to comply with LL97 and LL84. These lists are referred to as the Covered Buildings List (CBL).

To comply, all buildings on the CBL must input their energy usage data into the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager (ESPM), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s online benchmarking tool, which calculates a building’s annual GHG emissions. LL84 requires private buildings to annually input and submit to the benchmarking tool the total use of the energy and water for a building. Each building classification has a GHG emissions cap based on its square footage and occupancy group.

Building owners that are required to comply with LL97 must file a report with DOB, certified by a Registered Design Professional, by May 1, 2025 and each year thereafter. When an owner reports that their building exceeded its annual building emissions limit, they will be liable for a civil penalty of not more than an amount equal to the difference between the building emissions limit for that time frame and the reported building emissions for that year, multiplied by $268.

DOB utilizes a service provider to assist building owners in complying with the local laws related to the CMA. The stated goal of the outreach and assistance program is to accelerate the adoption of energy efficiency measures in order to increase the number of high-performance buildings in New York City. Outreach is conducted in multiple ways, including through social media and direct outreach events. The service provider also works with community organizations to publicize its events and connect building owners to available financing resources.

DOB also partnered with an entity to establish a Help Center to assist building owners with questions related to compliance with LL84 and LL97, providing training (a series of courses on benchmarking and building energy compliance) and maintaining a call center (telephone and email).

Key Findings

While DOB has made efforts to ensure private building owners comply with the CMA (LL95 and LL97)—including engaging third parties for outreach efforts to building owners—it has taken a hands-off approach to monitoring its outreach efforts and the building owners’ compliance with the requirements. As a result, there is no assurance that building owners will comply with the CMA’s requirements by the mandated deadlines to reduce GHG emissions. For instance:

DOB Outreach

• DOB reported sending out its own outreach letters to building owners, but it provided no documentation to substantiate when or how these letters were issued until September 2, 2025, after the closing conference. DOB provided us with a list of addresses where letters were sent and templates of the outreach letters. We also reviewed the address listing and determined that only 150 of the 602 addresses (25%) were on the CBL (the listing of private building owners that are required to comply with the local laws). As a result, there is no assurance that the building owners were made aware of the requirements. Other outreach efforts—such as compliance notices placed on the last page of property tax bills—were unlikely to reach the intended audience.
• During calendar year 2024, DOB had an initiative to contact private building owners by phone to advise them on how to meet the emission reduction targets by the first reporting date of May 1, 2025. However, DOB contacted only 1,118 of 13,269 (8%) of those required to comply. DOB officials stated that this was an internal effort with limited staff.
• To assess the effectiveness of DOB’s outreach efforts, we sent letters with a survey to a random sample of 151 building owners that were required to comply with LL97 using contact information provided by DOB. Of the 17 surveys received, five respondents stated they were unaware of the CMA, seven said they were never contacted by DOB, and five stated they were not aware of the service provider’s program.
  • It is noteworthy that 20 of the letters were returned as undeliverable.

Service Provider Outreach

DOB refers building owners to its service provider for further assistance. We reviewed DOB’s phone call log and determined that 631 of the building owners from the CBL that DOB had called were also referred to the service provider. We then selected a sample of 53 buildings to determine whether there were any documents supporting outreach efforts and whether DOB followed up after a referral was made. When we asked DOB officials for documentation on the type of assistance that was provided, DOB officials advised us that while they frequently meet with the service provider, they do not follow up on the referrals. Consequently, DOB does not have any documentation to support the service provider’s outreach efforts.

Additionally, as part of its efforts, the service provider has a website that includes a sustainability map allowing users to search for any building address in New York City to access information about its energy usage, verify LL97 compliance status, and review penalty projections. Building owners who may be fined in 2025 for not meeting 2024 requirements are highlighted in red on the website. To assess outreach efforts, we used this website to select a sample of buildings at risk of not meeting their goals. We determined that approximately half of the building owners were not contacted by DOB (according to its phone call log), and only about half of the owners contacted were referred to the service provider for further assistance.

Finally, LL95 of 2019 amended the grade scale used for benchmarking covered buildings. LL33 of 2018 requires private building owners to display an energy efficiency label in a conspicuous area near each public entrance so it is visible to the public. DOB is responsible for enforcing building compliance. During May and June 2025, we visited 55 judgmentally selected buildings and found 13 (24%) did not have their energy efficiency labels posted as required. Of the 42 buildings that posted their energy efficiency labels, 13 (31%) were not displayed in an area visible to the public. For example, one energy efficiency label was located inside a desk drawer. In a meeting with DOB officials, they stated they do not conduct inspections to confirm that energy efficiency labels are posted and up to date.

Key Recommendations

• Contact building owners, especially those in jeopardy of not meeting the GHG emissions requirements, and document this contact.
• Reassess resources tasked with contacting building owners about complying with the local laws.
• Create a system to track referrals made to the service provider and use it to maintain information about services/assistance provided to the building owners and to follow up on buildings that are in jeopardy of not meeting GHG emissions requirements.
• Educate building owners on the requirements of the local law to ensure they fully understand where the energy efficiency labels should be posted.
• Inspect buildings to verify that an energy efficiency label is posted near each public entrance, so it is visible to the public.