Indianapolis sustainability director describes 'Thriving Buildings' benchmarking ordinance and lessons for Carmel

Mo McReynolds, interim director of the Office of Sustainability for the City of Indianapolis, outlined Indianapolis’ Thriving Buildings program and benchmarking ordinance to the Carmel Climate Action Advisory Committee on Feb. 25. McReynolds said the city requires buildings over 50,000 square feet to benchmark energy and water use, report in phases over five years, and expects broader public transparency and limited fines once implementation advances.

The presentation matters because McReynolds said buildings account for about two-thirds of Indianapolis’ greenhouse gas emissions — “about 65%” — making building energy use a top target for local decarbonization. She said benchmarking helps owners identify cost-saving upgrades and spurs market-driven improvements.

McReynolds said Indianapolis developed the ordinance after participating in Bloomberg Philanthropies’ American Cities Climate Challenge and working with stakeholders across 2020–2021. “We are on our way to decarbonizing our buildings, but there’s still quite a lot to do,” McReynolds said. She described a phased compliance schedule that began with the largest buildings and moved to a 50,000-square-foot threshold; exceptions include certain manufacturing sites and unconditioned spaces such as some water-treatment facilities.

The city uses utility-accounting tools to collect monthly usage and cost data, and it employs the EPA’s Portfolio Manager framework to generate Energy Star–style benchmarking scores for covered buildings. McReynolds said Indianapolis uses a proprietary platform, Beam, to manage reporting at scale and holds “data jam” events so building owners can bring utility bills and get help entering data. She described the program as “carrot and stick”: outreach, public recognition and technical assistance precede modest fines and, eventually, public transparency of anonymized results.

McReynolds discussed financing and incentive structures the city is building alongside benchmarking. She said Indianapolis and a private partner helped launch a green bank and are capitalizing it; the Office of Sustainability has also been awarded approximately $31 million in grants from federal sources including the Inflation Reduction Act and IIJA, which McReynolds said support planning and technical assistance. Any fee revenue collected under the ordinance would go to a revolving loan or grant fund to support retrofits.

Committee members asked technical and implementation questions. Jeremy Cashman, chief infrastructure officer for Carmel, asked whether Carmel could start by compiling usage for a selection of municipal buildings; McReynolds said municipal benchmarking is feasible and that Indianapolis is “walking the walk” with its own buildings but still faces challenges such as broken meters and inconsistent metering. Leslie Webb, a committee member appointed by the mayor, asked why Indianapolis set the 50,000-square-foot threshold; McReynolds said she was not the ordinance author but that 50,000 square feet is a common best practice among peer cities and roughly the size of a grocery store.

McReynolds also described data-collection limits: the program focuses on usage (kilowatt-hours, therms, gallons) and costs rather than converting every entry to emissions on initial reporting forms. “You don’t improve what you can’t measure,” she said, explaining the behavioral logic behind benchmarking.

She encouraged regional cooperation and said Indianapolis is seeking a Department of Energy planning grant to convene other Indiana cities; she named Carmel among the municipalities the office plans to contact if the DOE award proceeds. McReynolds invited committee members to consult Indianapolis’ materials at indy.gov and to follow the Office of Sustainability @sustainindie on social media.

McReynolds’ presentation ended with an offer to return for a deeper briefing tailored to Carmel, and several committee members said they would welcome a follow-up visit.

The presentation and discussion gave Carmel committee members practical options to explore: phased thresholds, software choices, stakeholder outreach events, use of federal tax incentives for renewable projects, and capitalization models for retrofit financing.