Commerce details Clean Buildings implementation, incentives and compliance timeline

Emily Salzberg, managing director of the clean buildings unit at the Washington State Department of Commerce, presented the department’s status update on implementing the state’s Clean Buildings Performance Standard and summarized incentive programs and a recent work‑group assessment of Tier 1 compliance costs.

The Clean Buildings Performance Standard focuses on existing, large buildings to reduce greenhouse‑gas emissions from the built environment. The law covers existing buildings over 50,000 square feet (Tier 1); a 2022 statute added Tier 2 buildings (20,000–50,000 square feet and multifamily over 20,000). “We were the first state in the nation to pass a statewide building performance standard,” Salzberg said, describing the program’s benchmarking, operations and maintenance, and performance‑target pathways.

Scope, timing and incentives

- Commerce says the state has roughly 8,000…