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Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava recently celebrated the success of the second year of the Building Efficiency 305 Challenge (BE305 Challenge).
Launched in April 2021 with support from the Miami-Dade County Office of Resilience and in partnership with leading businesses and community organizations, the BE305 Challenge empowers local building owners and managers to improve building performance and reduce operational expenses by implementing benchmarking and other low- or no-cost strategies to cut energy and water use.
“I am so proud of all the building owners and managers in the public and private sectors who dedicated themselves to this challenge,” said Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. “They are proving that by making small changes, we can save energy and water used in our buildings and help save money for the people who live and work in them, while also protecting the environment. It is a true testament to how our community is leading the way in creating a green economy, and a more resilient and equitable future.”
The BE305 Challenge is designed for large existing buildings used for residential, commercial, and institutional purposes. Since the Challenge launched, 120 buildings from 13 of Miami-Dade County’s 34 municipalities have signed on from both the public and private sectors, representing over 28 million square feet of floor space.
“The overall goal for the BE305 Challenge is to collectively reduce energy and water consumption 20 percent by 2026, and the participants are well on their way to achieving that milestone,” said James Murley, Miami-Dade County Chief Resilience Officer. “We are thrilled that so many buildings participated in the Challenge this year and that our Year One participants continued to make progress too.”
This winter, in partnership with the University of Miami, graduate students at the UM Energy Industrial Assessment Center successfully completed four energy and water assessments as a service to Challenge participants. The students provided building managers with concrete, low-cost strategies to reduce consumption and save on utility bills.
So far, recommendations proposed by the students potentially save buildings over $292,000 and 4.4 million kWh, while reducing energy bills on average by 45 percent. Ten additional assessments will be sponsored through the BE305 Challenge, which the UM team will conduct over the next year and a half.
Some of the Challenge winners include the City of Miami for the most buildings registered by one challenge participant, the Southeast Financial Center for the largest building to participate, and Costex, for being the first building to sign on of the upcoming 2023 cohort.
“We are excited to be the first company in 2023 to sign up for the BE305 Challenge,” said Melissa Uribe Gil, executive vice president of Costex. “This cause is very dear to us. Three years ago, we constructed our new headquarters with these goals in mind: To be more efficient in our daily operations while taking care of our environment by lowering our carbon imprint. Being the second largest solar panel project in South Florida, producing over 1 MW of green energy yearly, we are achieving this goal daily and look forward to even more success as a participant in the BE305 Challenge.”
Key Challenge partners include the Department of Energy Industrial Assessment Center at the University of Miami, the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF IFAS) Extension and the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department, all of which worked with the Office of Resilience to empower participants to achieve the best possible results.
Through substantive energy and water efficiency in county, municipal, institutional, and commercial buildings, the BE305 Challenge is helping building owners and managers free up business capital for more productive uses, stimulate growth for communities, foster new business opportunities, and reduce the carbon footprint of buildings to help Miami-Dade reach the goal of becoming a net-zero carbon emissions community by 2050.
The BE305 Challenge is a part of the county’s Building Efficiency 305 Program — a broader initiative designed to make Miami-Dade more resilient by supporting property owners and managers in their quest to improve building performance through training, access to financing, benchmarking, retuning (or retro-commissioning), and building code education.
The economic and environmental benefits associated with the broader BE305 program include $37 million to $112 million in energy and water savings, 61 million gallons of water saved, and up to 1 million metric tons of GHG emissions.
After a successful second year of the BE305 Challenge, the county is recruiting new buildings to join for the third year. Anyone interested in the program is encouraged to join the next virtual information session on Apr. 13.
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