Enterprise Green Retrofit Audit Protocol Established
By Caitlin Jones
2 min read
Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. and CAS Financial Advisory Services (CAS FAS) have jointly developed a green audit protocol for existing affordable multifamily housing buildings.
The new Enterprise Retrofit Audit Protocol establishes a baseline for metrics and disclosures in the analysis of possible green improvements to a building. This thereby permits owners and developers to make better decisions in selecting which specific energy- and water-savings measures to deploy in a retrofit of a building and when to deploy them.
The new protocol gives the user an evaluation of the physical and capital needs of a building that is complete and can be underwritten. It incorporates an energy audit as a component of a broader capital needs assessment and allows for cost projection benefits.
“Greening an existing property is a process, not a single event,” said David Smith CEO of CAS FAS. “If we want to make progress toward greener, healthier multifamily housing, we have to retrofit properties incrementally, over time. But owners and lenders are reluctant to make retrofit decisions over time without consistent, well-founded financial underwriting. Now they have it.”
The new protocol identifies building systems that need to be inspected and measured, highlights analysis that needs to be performed, and provides guidelines on how to present this information. During the next several months, Enterprise will be collecting feedback on the protocol with the expectation of publishing a review in late 2010.
More information on the Enterprise Retrofit Audit Protocol is available through the Enterprise Green Communities Web site.
