
A municipality’s real estate portfolio includes many types of buildings, such as offices; community and recreational centres; arenas and other sporting facilities; libraries; and warehouses. All these buildings – despite their differences – have one thing in common: they use energy, and the cost of that energy is a significant part of a municipality’s operating budget.
Energy benchmarking is an ongoing review of the energy consumption of a building to determine if the building's energy performance is getting better or worse.
By making energy benchmarking a routine practice, you can:
- identify poorly performing buildings
- establish a baseline for measuring improvement
- create competition through comparison with similar buildings
- participate in certification programs for green buildings and related environmental initiatives
ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager is a free, online, secure platform that allows users to monitor and optimize a building's energy use and to compare a building’s energy performance to others in its class.
Portfolio Manager is much more than an energy benchmarking tool!
Portfolio Manager can also be used for:
- provincial, territorial and municipal reporting programs
- uploading energy data automatically to utilities
- tracking water usage and waste
- the ENERGY STAR certification program

Build a better city with energy benchmarking
Energy benchmarking is an effective way to reduce operating costs without compromising service levels. By tracking a building’s energy use and comparing it to the energy used by other buildings in your portfolio or across the country, you can identify both best practices and candidates for improvement.

Compare and get recognized with ENERGY STAR
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) offers ENERGY STAR building scores for many municipal building types. The ENERGY STAR score is a 1-100 score that provides an at-a-glance indication of a building’s energy performance. Buildings that achieve a score of 75 or higher are eligible to apply for ENERGY STAR certification.

Connect and share with others
Connecting with other users and sharing data is easy in Portfolio Manager. Share one building with one user or multiple buildings with multiple users at the same time with just a few clicks of the mouse.
How NRCan is helping municipalities reach their building energy efficiency goals
Benchmarking tools and resources
NRCan offers a suite of tools and resources to support your efforts to be more energy-efficient. And Portfolio Manager can help you build a better city by providing nationally standardized, statistically valid Canadian data to use for benchmarking a building’s energy use.
ENERGY STAR recognition
NRCan recognizes the most energy-efficient commercial and institutional buildings in Canada with ENERGY STAR certification. Certified buildings are eligible for an ENERGY STAR Canada Award.
Benchmarking and Building Performance Standards Toolkit
A growing number of jurisdictions have policies that require buildings to be benchmarked and their energy use disclosed. In Canada, benchmarking, labelling and disclosure policies are the jurisdiction of the provinces, territories and municipalities. NRCan supports municipalities and other jurisdictions in implementing those initiatives.
This toolkit provides information to inform and support provincial, territorial and municipal government decision-makers who are exploring policies to reduce the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of existing commercial, institutional and multi-unit residential buildings.
- Building performance standards (canada.ca)
- Toolkit for Implementing Benchmarking and Building Performance Standards in Canada
Interested in joining the BLD and BPS Community of Practice? Contact the buildings-batiments@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca to sign up!
In order to access ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, you will need to leave Natural Resources Canada's website
Please note the following information when using the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager:
- The tool is bilingual, but anything else on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website is not available in French.
- The tool has been adapted to include Canadian weather, postal codes, both official languages, the metric system and data specific to Canada.
- Portfolio Manager and ENERGY STAR are trademarks of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
ENERGY STAR success stories
Learn how a New Brunswick school and hospital have benefited from ENERGY STAR certification and the Portfolio Manager tool.
ENERGY STAR Certification (3:49)

"We got our building ENERGY STAR certified because environmentally, it was the right thing to do."
Chantale Cloutier,
Principal, Bliss Carmen Middle School, Fredericton, New Brunswick

"Certification was a great way to promote all the great work that the hospital has done and continues to do regarding energy management and GHG emission reduction."
Brent Godbout,
Energy Manager, Health Services, Service New Brunswick
For more information or to find out how we can help your municipality’s benchmarking efforts, contact: buildingscertification-certificationbatiments@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca.
The ENERGY STAR and PORTFOLIO MANAGER names and the ENERGY STAR symbol are trademarks registered in Canada by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and are administered and promoted by Natural Resources Canada.