Philly is open sourcing its building energy info

Early last year under mayor Michael Nutter, the Office of Sustainability released a data visualization mapping Philadelphia’s commercial building energy usage (and further emphasized that buildings are responsible for 60 percent of the city’s carbon footprint).

Jim Kenney is building on the energy data initiatives launched by his predecessor’s administration.

Last week, the mayor announced Philadelphia’s participation in the U.S. Department of Energy‘s SEED (Standard Energy Efficiency Data) Collaborative, an open-source database platform designed to make the benchmarking process easier to manage — and, obviously, open and free.

The city’s participation will help the DOE accomplish its goal of doubling energy productivity by 2030.

“Philadelphia is an early leader in the benchmarking and disclosure of building energy information, and making use of the SEED platform will only improve that report,” Kenney said in a release. “We look forward to being an example for other cities as they look to increase sustainable energy use and limit greenhouse gas emissions.”

Right now, the city is working with energy benchmarking data for close to 2,000 buildings of the commercial, municipal, and school variety. According to the release, 800 multi-family properties will be added to the platform this year.