Building Performance Software: Portfolio-Level Capabilities and Applications

Navigating the broad and rapidly evolving market landscape of software solutions is
complex whether you are a sustainability leader, building owner, energy manager, or
building engineer with energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals for a
portfolio of buildings. The Department of Energy’s Better Buildings partners have noted
this complexity and the associated lack of publicly available information. In response, this
report reviews the ecosystem of environmental, social, and governance (ESG), energy
management information systems (EMIS), and decarbonization software with the goal of
orienting prospective users to current offerings. Organizations can utilize this guidance to
determine the specific capabilities needed to support decarbonization efforts and procure
appropriate software to streamline the GHG emissions reduction process.
In this paper, we refer to “decarbonization software” as the category of software that
meets an organization’s needs for decarbonization planning, implementation, and
tracking. This software may have a heritage in ESG or EMIS, or it may be an entirely new
product. This report offers a snapshot of today’s rapidly evolving decarbonization software
capabilities, along with guidance for procuring and utilizing it that will remain relevant
despite any future software changes.
Exploratory research was conducted on over 100 software providers, and interviews were
held with 28 of them. Note that inclusion in this report does not indicate an endorsement,
nor does a product’s absence from this report indicate a lack of suitability