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Smart Buildings Center

Energy Efficiency Innovation Center, Tool Library & Data Visualization

Smart Buildings Center July Wrap-up

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Time flies when you’re having fun and that’s no different at Smart Buildings Center! We’ve had a busy July and to make it easy to catch-up with us we’ve consolidated the biggest headlines into the blog post below. You can click each headline to be taken right to the story as it originally appeared.

We’re excited to announce our SBX Day 2 Opening Keynote “Accelerating Performance at the Speed of Innovation” | Last Chance for Early-Bird Pricing!

Megan Owen, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Markets at McKinstry, will deliver an opening keynote that focuses on the changing landscape for building owners and managers and how cost pressure, resilience, risk, security, operational complexity, and AI are reshaping expectations for smart buildings.

Megan’s insightful strategic approach is defined by never-ending curiosity and the ability to visualize and champion development and direction for McKinstry and its clients. With a focus on market strategy across all McKinstry operations, Megan’s experience and leadership have led to complex high-profile projects and advancements in climate and energy policy across the country. By establishing and strengthening market strategy, sales enablement, marketing and government affairs, Megan has shaped McKinstry’s go-to-market approaches to ensure success and client satisfaction.

Prior to joining McKinstry, Megan served as former Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire’s director of King County outreach. In this role, she united public and private entities around common interests. Her passion for stakeholder engagement and removing climate harm from the built environment is shared beyond McKinstry through nonprofit support and service. She currently serves on the board of directors of the NW Energy Coalition.

Stay tuned for more exciting speaker announcements soon!

The early-bird registration deadline is August 15th. Register now to join us at the event on November 9th & 10th and save!

BOC earns Energy Skilled Recognition from DOE

We’re spreading the word! Our friends at Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment have a new reporting portal and compliance tool for 2026 energy data!

New Seattle Building & Energy Portal Now Available for Building Reporting

The Seattle Building & Energy Portal is now live for Energy Benchmarking reporting. Current features can help building owners and representatives submit outstanding 2025 Energy Benchmarking data and get you ready for future building reporting requirements. BEPS compliance features and guidance will roll out in early 2027.

Reminders about the new Building & Energy Portal:

  • Portal resource page now available: Visit the new Portal resource page at seattle.gov/building-and-energy-portal. This is where you’ll go to log in to and learn about the new Portal, access user guides, track compliance reporting deadlines, and more.
  • Seamless transition with ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®: The Portal syncs with building owners’ existing ESPM accounts. It will become your central spot for compliance, reporting, and technical assistance for Energy Benchmarking and BEPS.
  • Changes to benchmarking compliance process: All covered buildings will now need to use the new Building & Energy Portal to comply with Energy Benchmarking for 2026 by June 1, 2027.
  • Portal access codes coming soon: The City of Seattle will send notification letters to all building owners later this year. These letters will have custom claim codes to link your buildings and set up more users in your Portal account, helping you prepare for benchmarking reports due in 2027 and for future BEPS reporting.

Access the Portal and find Portal resources

Confirm Your Compliance Status with the Compliance Look-Up Tool

You can now use the new Compliance Look-Up Tool to confirm your compliance status for reporting 2025 energy benchmarking data that was due on June 1, 2026.

Look up your building’s Energy Benchmarking compliance status

Reminder: Submit Outstanding 2025 Benchmarking Data Through the New Building & Energy Portal

Buildings that still need to report 2025 data must submit their data under the new compliance process in the Seattle Building & Energy Portal. The City of Seattle will reach out directly to non-compliant building owners to share instructions for getting started and resources to understand benchmarking process changes.

Updates to Seattle Energy Benchmarking Map

The Seattle Energy Benchmarking Map underwent some changes as part of the Building & Energy Portal roll-out, and data is now updated in real time. Compliance status, benchmarking data, and customized building performance reports are now available through Data Year 2025.

SBC Announces 2026 BOC Operator of the Year!

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The Smart Buildings Center (SBC) and Building Operator Certification (BOC) program are proud to announce the 2026 BOC Operator of the Year: Michael Durham, Lead Mechanic 3 from Edmonds College

Each year, BOC requests nominations for people working to improve the energy efficiency of their work environment using skills they learned in the BOC program. We received many impressive 2026 nominations detailing how methods learned in BOC classes are helping people make improvements in their work environments, but this year Michael’s work stood out among the other candidates.

At Edmonds College, Michael works hard to look for measures that will improve the college’s energy efficiency across all of their 25 buildings and 734,000 square feet of occupied space. In 2026 that meant reducing natural gas usage, replacing single building fans with fan walls in HVAC systems and replacing the plant’s cooling tower with an energy efficient induced draft model. Across the board, Michael’s work saw the incorporation of 143 scheduled spaces throughout the campus and up to a 98% reduction in equipment run time. These efforts even helped inspire the State Board of Community and Technical Colleges to offer an incentive to other colleges to adopt a similar system.

Michael’s hard work and application of concepts he learned in the BOC program resulted in the college saving an estimated 512,000 KWH in energy use over the course of the year. Michael’s tireless dedication to BOC principles, ingenuity in keeping up with the latest trends in energy conservation and building operation, and leadership have been instrumental in the college’s success in reducing its carbon footprint. His BOC training and hard work created the following real-world impacts for Edmonds College:

  • Energy savings totaling 512,000 KW Hours in a single year saving $41,000.00 in annual energy savings.
  • Estimated energy savings 
    • 38% estimated total energy savings over the past year
      • 15.4% reduction in electricity
      • 52.5% reduction in natural gas
  • Estimated EUI Reduction
    • Dropped by 24.56, or 38%
    • Based on the energy data from Gazebo and an estimated 718,023 sq. ft. of buildings campus-wide

The SBC and BOC program applaud Michael on his efforts and congratulate him on being named as 2026 BOC Operator of the Year!

Know someone who deserves recognition for their work in the industry? Nominations will open for the 2027 BOC Operator of the Year award in April, so stay tuned!

Happening This Week at Smart Buildings Center: BOC earns Energy Skilled Recognition from DOE

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Click here for a downloadable and sharable version of this flier!

Early Bird Registration for SBX 2026 Ends in 2 Weeks!

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The early-bird registration deadline is August 15th. Register now to join us at the event on November 9th & 10th and save!

Smart Buildings Exchange 2026 is fast approaching! You won’t want to miss our 2-day in-person event. Right now, you can save big on registration by taking advantage of the early-bird rate, but only if you register by August 15th. At the event, you can expect inspiring keynotes, collaborative workshops, and thought-provoking panel discussions and debates featuring regional leaders and industry professionals, as well as networking opportunities and happy hours. For more details check out the schedule: https://www.sbxconference.org/fall-conference/ and stay tuned for upcoming speaker announcements!

You also won’t want to miss SBX Plus, a virtual webinar series held from February-October. Sessions from February-May are recorded and available to view now with two more sessions to come in September and October. You can select SBX Plus with your registration and get instant access.

Happening This Week: Meet Rebecca Sheppard, Senior Project Manager

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Meet Rebecca Sheppard, Senior Project Manager at Building Potential and the Smart Buildings Center. Rebecca is on the front lines of one of the most significant shifts in commercial building policy in the Pacific Northwest — helping building owners, managers, and operators navigate Building Performance Standards in the Northwest.

The Clean Buildings Performance Standard (CBPS) is a Washington State law designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency across the state’s commercial building stock. All commercial buildings 20,000 square feet and larger are required to comply, and for many building professionals, figuring out where to start can feel overwhelming. That’s where Rebecca comes in. Through the Smart Buildings Center’s Clean Buildings Performance Standard Helpdesk — sponsored by the Washington State Department of Commerce and participating utilities — Rebecca provides one-on-one technical assistance, benchmarking support, resources, and trainings to help buildings get on the path to compliance.

Oregon has also implemented a Building Performance Standard, and Rebecca is expanding her work to support building professionals there as well. In partnership with ClearlyEnergy and the Oregon Department of Energy, Rebecca will be leading helpdesk services for Oregon, bringing the same hands-on technical assistance to building owners, managers, and operators as they work toward compliance with Oregon’s standard.

Rebecca’s work doesn’t stop at her desk. She regularly attends industry conferences to speak about Building Performance Standards compliance and to train building professionals on what they need to know. Whether she’s leading a workshop, presenting to a room full of facility managers, or walking a building owner through their first benchmarking submission, Rebecca brings both deep technical knowledge and a genuine commitment to making clean building operations accessible to everyone she works with.

 

Last Call for SBX 2026 Speakers! Deadline is Friday 7/17

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Interested in speaking or have speaker suggestions? We want to hear from you!

Ready to share your expertise or know great speakers who should be considered? Complete our speaker suggestion form to tell us about yourself or the suggested speaker(s), areas of expertise, and which topics would be a good fit. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and our programming team will be in touch with those whose experience aligns with our conference themes.

Submit Speaker Suggestion Form by July 17th!

Original post continues below, check it out for more SBX 2026 News!


We’re excited to announce our SBX Day 2 Lunch Keynote “Smart Buildings in a Chaotic World.”

Joseph Aamidor, an experienced product leader and expert in smart buildings, real estate decarbonization, and facility operations, will deliver a keynote on the forces reshaping the built environment centered on questions like ‘what’s next for smart buildings?’ and ‘where is this industry headed and what will it take to lead it?’ Joseph provides product and market strategy guidance to building owners/operators, established building management firms, technology providers, investors, and early-stage innovators. Previously, he served as Director of Product at Lucid Design Group and was a product manager at Johnson Controls. Stay tuned for more exciting speaker announcements soon!

 

The early-bird registration deadline is August 15th. Register now to join us at the event on November 9th & 10th and save!

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SBX 2026 is where the Pacific Northwest’s smart buildings community comes together to do the hard work of figuring out what’s next. Whether you join us as an attendee, a speaker, or a sponsor, we hope to see you there.

Questions? Reach us at [email protected]

More information: www.sbxconference.org

Contact Us

Smart Buildings Center
Pacific Tower
1200 12th Ave. S., Suite 110
Seattle, WA 98144

206-538-0832

[email protected]

Smart Buildings Center is a project collaboration with Building Potential