Portfolio Manager references are to the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager web services and data entry methods documented by the EPA; utility data programmes vary by utility and state, so confirm the terms with your supplier.
Every ESG framework a property owner reports to, and every city emissions law, starts with the same twelve numbers: monthly energy consumption for the building, by fuel, for the calendar year. GRESB scores it, Local Law 97 fines on it, BERDO verifies it, and an investor questionnaire assumes it is one query away. In most portfolios it is not. The utility data that ESG reporting depends on lives in accounts payable as scanned bills, in the billing system as tenant meter reads, in the tenants' own supplier accounts where the landlord cannot see it, and in a Portfolio Manager account that somebody set up for the last benchmarking deadline and has not opened since.
This is a how-to for utility data ESG reporting: building the collection so that the twelve numbers exist for every building, every month, with a known source. It covers why utility data is the bottleneck, the difference between whole-building and tenant-metered data and why the frameworks care, the collection methods with a comparison table, how Portfolio Manager feeds work, the data quality checks to run monthly, and how the pipeline is built from the property system's own records rather than a parallel spreadsheet.
At a glance
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What utility data does ESG reporting need? | Monthly consumption for each fuel (electricity, gas, district heat or steam, fuel oil) and water, for the whole building, for the reporting year, with the boundary between landlord and tenant supplies stated |
| What is whole-building energy data? | The total consumption of every supply serving the building, landlord-paid and tenant-paid, which is what emissions laws and ENERGY STAR scores are calculated on |
| What is the hardest part? | Tenant-metered supplies, which the tenant contracts directly and the landlord has no automatic right to see |
| What are the collection methods? | Bill entry from AP, meter reads, landlord sub-meters, utility aggregated whole-building data programmes, Green Button Connect My Data, tenant consent and data sharing under the lease, third-party utility data services |
| How does data get into Portfolio Manager? | Manual entry per meter, spreadsheet upload, or automated exchange through web services from a utility or a service provider |
| What is data coverage? | The share of the building's floor area for which actual consumption data exists; GRESB scores it directly and it limits what an ENERGY STAR score or an emissions filing can be based on |
Why utility data is the bottleneck
Utility data is the bottleneck because it is produced by parties the property manager does not control, on cycles that do not match the reporting year, in formats designed for billing rather than measurement.
The supplier's bill covers a billing period, not a calendar month, so a bill dated 14 February covers 12 January to 11 February and has to be prorated into two months. Some bills are estimated and later corrected, so the consumption on the bill is not the consumption in the period until the true-up arrives. Units differ by fuel and by supplier (kWh, MWh, therms, ccf, MMBtu, kg of steam, litres of oil), and a mixed-unit total is meaningless. Meters are replaced, accounts are renumbered, suppliers change on a tender, and each event breaks the series unless somebody records the old and new identifiers against the same building.
Then there is the tenant problem. In a multi-tenant office, retail centre or industrial park, most of the energy is bought by tenants under their own supply contracts. The landlord's bills cover the common areas and central plant; the tenants' bills cover the demised premises. A framework that asks for whole-building consumption is asking the landlord for numbers it has never seen, from accounts it is not party to.
The result is that the manager who starts collecting in March for a July GRESB deadline discovers that the prior year's tenant data is partly unobtainable, the landlord bills have gaps where a supplier changed, and the water data was never collected at all. None of that is recoverable after the fact. The collection has to run through the year, monthly, as a routine.
Whole-building vs tenant-metered data
The distinction matters because the frameworks ask for different boundaries and score them differently.
| Data boundary | What it includes | Who is billed | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landlord-controlled | Common areas, central plant (chillers, boilers, lifts, car parks, external lighting), vacant space | Landlord, recovered through the service charge or operating expenses | GRESB landlord-controlled indicators; the manager's own operational target; the service charge reconciliation |
| Tenant-controlled (tenant-metered) | Demised premises supplied on the tenant's own account with the utility | Tenant directly | GRESB tenant-controlled indicators; whole-building totals; tenants' own Scope 2 reporting |
| Tenant sub-metered by the landlord | Demised premises supplied through the landlord's account and recharged on a sub-meter | Landlord pays the utility; tenant pays the landlord | Landlord data set (the landlord holds the reading); tenant recharge; whole-building totals |
| Whole-building | Everything above, added | Mixed | ENERGY STAR score; Local Law 97, BERDO and other emissions and benchmarking laws; GRESB whole-building intensity; EPC and NABERS ratings |
Two consequences follow. First, the boundary has to be recorded per supply, not per building: each utility account or meter is tagged as landlord-controlled, tenant-controlled or landlord sub-metered, with the floor area it serves. Without that tag, whole-building totals cannot be separated into the landlord and tenant figures GRESB wants, and data coverage cannot be calculated. Second, a building where the landlord sub-meters tenants from its own supply is far easier to report than one where tenants contract directly, because the landlord already holds every reading. That is an argument for landlord-held supplies with sub-metering at the next refit or re-letting, and it is the reason the tenant utility data collection methods below exist for the buildings where the landlord does not.
Worked example of data coverage: A 300,000 square foot office has 90,000 square feet of landlord-controlled area (lobbies, plant, car park, one vacant floor) and six tenants on direct supply contracts occupying the other 210,000 square feet. The landlord has full data for its own supplies. Three tenants, occupying 130,000 square feet, provide their consumption under the lease's data-sharing clause; three do not. Data coverage by floor area is (90,000 + 130,000) ÷ 300,000, which is 73.3%. The whole-building total is incomplete by the three missing tenants' consumption, so the building cannot receive an ENERGY STAR score and the GRESB submission is scored on 73.3% coverage. Adding one more tenant of 40,000 square feet lifts coverage to 86.7%; getting all six lifts it to 100% and makes the whole-building figure usable for the emissions filing.
Collection methods
There is no single method that works for every building. The table sets out the options, what each gives, what it requires and where it fails.
| Method | What it provides | Requires | Frequency | Where it fails |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bill entry from accounts payable | Landlord-controlled consumption and cost from every utility invoice | Consumption (not just cost) captured at bill entry, with unit, period start and end, and meter or account reference | Monthly, as bills are coded | Consumption field left blank; bills entered by cost only; estimated bills entered as actual |
| Meter reads (manual or BMS) | Landlord-controlled consumption independent of billing periods; sub-metered tenant consumption | Meter register with location, serial, unit and multiplier; a read schedule; a BMS or AMR feed where available | Monthly (manual) or interval (automated) | Reads missed; multiplier errors; meter replaced without a closing read |
| Landlord sub-meters | Tenant consumption where the landlord holds the supply | Sub-meters installed per demise, read on the same schedule; tenant recharge from the same reading | Monthly | Unmetered plug loads or supplementary cooling on the landlord's supply; sub-meter totals not reconciled to the main meter |
| Utility aggregated whole-building data | Total consumption for the building from the utility, all accounts combined, without individual tenant consent | The utility to run a programme (common where benchmarking laws apply); a minimum number of accounts in the building (often four or five) so no single tenant is identifiable; a request per building | Monthly or annual, depending on the utility | Utility offers no programme; building has too few tenants to meet the anonymity threshold; the aggregate cannot be split by tenant |
| Green Button Connect My Data | Authorised, machine-readable interval or billing data from the utility's account to a third party | The utility to support Green Button Connect; the account holder (landlord or tenant) to authorise the connection | Continuous once authorised | Utility supports Download My Data but not Connect; tenant declines to authorise; authorisation lapses |
| Tenant consent and data sharing under the lease | Tenant-metered consumption supplied by the tenant | A data-sharing clause with a deadline, a format and consent to use; a quarterly request and chase cycle; or a letter of authority to the tenant's supplier | Quarterly (or as the lease states) | No clause in older leases; tenant's accounts team does not respond; data supplied as PDF bills needing re-keying |
| Third-party utility data service | Bill capture, unit normalisation, calendarisation and delivery into Portfolio Manager or the property system | A provider under contract; access to landlord accounts and, with consent, tenant accounts | Monthly | Provider holds the data set rather than the property system; tenant accounts still need consent |
The combination that works in most multi-tenant buildings is bill entry and meter reads for landlord supplies, a utility aggregated data request for the whole-building total where the utility offers it, and tenant consent under the lease for the split. Where the utility offers no aggregated programme, whole-building data depends entirely on the tenants, and the green lease data-sharing clause becomes the only mechanism. In single-tenant buildings the tenant's data is the whole-building data and the letter of authority to the supplier is usually simpler than quarterly requests.
For each building, the collection plan should name one method per supply, with the owner and the cadence, and that plan is the utility data inventory at the end of this guide.
Portfolio Manager feeds
ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager is the benchmarking tool US emissions and benchmarking laws are built on, and it is where whole-building data ends up for Local Law 97, BERDO and the ENERGY STAR score. The EPA documents three ways to get utility data into it: manual entry one meter at a time, spreadsheet upload for many meters at once, and automated exchange through Portfolio Manager web services, used by utilities and by service providers that exchange data directly.
The choice decides how much re-keying the manager does each year. Manual entry works for a handful of buildings with a few meters. Spreadsheet upload works for a portfolio where the property system can export a consumption file in the Portfolio Manager template: one row per meter per period, with start date, end date, quantity and unit. Web services work where a utility offers automated whole-building data delivery to Portfolio Manager (the EPA lists the utilities that do) or where a service provider connects the property system to Portfolio Manager and pushes the data monthly.
Whichever route, the meter structure in Portfolio Manager has to mirror the meter structure in the property system: the same meters, the same units, the same boundary tags, and a record of which Portfolio Manager meter ID corresponds to which account or meter in the system. The failure that surfaces at filing time is a Portfolio Manager property with meters nobody can map back to a bill, so a flagged anomaly cannot be traced. ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager data is only as defensible as that mapping.
Portfolio Manager also needs twelve full consecutive months of data for every active meter before it will calculate a score or a metric for the year, and it treats a gap of any length as disqualifying for the period. A supplier change in the middle of the year, handled by closing one meter and opening another on the same date, keeps the series continuous; the same change handled by leaving the old meter open with no data breaks it.
Data quality checks
Consumption data goes wrong quietly. The checks below are run monthly on the landlord data and quarterly on the tenant data, before the period is closed.
| Check | Rule | What it catches |
|---|---|---|
| Completeness | Every active account and meter has a reading or bill for the month | Missed bills, unread meters, accounts closed without notice |
| Period alignment | Bill periods calendarised (prorated by day) into months; no period counted twice or missed between bills | Overlapping or gapped billing periods after a supplier change |
| Units | Every reading stored in a native unit and converted to kWh (or the framework's unit) with the factor recorded | Therms entered as kWh; MWh entered as kWh; steam in pounds vs kilograms |
| Estimated flag | Estimated bills marked as estimated; replaced by the actual when the true-up arrives; year-end totals exclude unreplaced estimates or report them separately | Estimated consumption reported as actual and later contradicted |
| Variance | Month-on-month or year-on-year variance over 20% flagged for review with a recorded explanation | Meter multiplier errors, leaks, plant faults, data entry errors (an extra zero) |
| Cost per unit | Cost divided by consumption within a plausible band for the tariff | Consumption entered in the wrong unit; bills entered against the wrong meter |
| Reconciliation | Sub-meter totals compared with the main meter; landlord plus tenant compared with the utility's whole-building aggregate | Unmetered loads; sub-meters not read; tenants missing from the split |
| Boundary | Every account and meter tagged landlord, tenant or sub-metered, with floor area served | Coverage miscalculated; tenant data reported as landlord |
| Identifiers | Meter serial, account number, supplier and Portfolio Manager meter ID recorded and kept through changes | Series broken at supplier or meter change; anomalies untraceable |
| Source | Every figure linked to the bill, read or tenant submission it came from | Assurance and verification failures; figures that cannot be explained a year later |
The variance check is the one that pays for itself outside ESG. A 20% month-on-month increase in water consumption with no occupancy change is a leak; a 20% increase in electricity in a month with mild weather is plant running outside schedule. Managers who run the check monthly find those before the bill does, which is the operational return on utility data ESG reporting collection.
Building the pipeline from the ERP
Utility data automation is not a separate system; it is a decision to capture consumption once, at the point the data first enters the business, and to make every report read from that record.
The property system already receives most of the data. Every landlord utility bill is coded and approved in accounts payable, so consumption can be captured on the bill line at that moment, with unit, period and meter reference, rather than cost only. Every tenant recharge is calculated from a meter read, so the read is already recorded against the meter and the demise. Every vendor invoice for a meter replacement or a BMS change is a record that the meter register can be updated from. The pipeline is the set of rules that make those captures complete and consistent, plus the exports that feed Portfolio Manager, GRESB and the emissions filing from the one data set.
The sequence for building it: set up the meter and account register per building with boundary tags and floor areas; require consumption, unit and period on every utility bill line at AP entry, with the estimated flag; record meter reads against the register on the read schedule, including the sub-meter reads used for tenant recharges; add tenant-supplied data as readings against the tenant's account with the submission attached; run the monthly quality checks and close the month; and export the calendar-year set per building in Portfolio Manager's spreadsheet format or through a web services connection.
In RIOO on NetSuite, the utility and asset management module holds each building's utility accounts and meters and records consumption from utility bills and meter reads, with the fuel type and unit on every reading, alongside the utility costs and the vendors that supply them. Tenant-metered consumption is recorded through the same resident utility billing records that track usage and produce the tenant charges, and the utility bills themselves come in through vendor management and AP. Those records, by account, by month and by fuel, are the data set the exports above are built from.
Utility data inventory
The inventory is the control document for the pipeline: one row per supply, per building. Complete it once and update it on every supplier, meter or tenancy change.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Building | Name, address, gross floor area, Portfolio Manager property ID |
| Supply | Fuel or water; supplier; account number; meter serial; Portfolio Manager meter ID |
| Boundary | Landlord-controlled / tenant-controlled / landlord sub-metered |
| Area served | Floor area (and tenant, where applicable) |
| Unit | Native billing unit and conversion factor to kWh |
| Collection method | AP bill entry / meter read / sub-meter / utility aggregated data / Green Button / tenant data sharing / third-party service |
| Owner | Person responsible for the monthly or quarterly capture |
| Cadence | Monthly / quarterly / interval |
| Lease basis (tenant supplies) | Data-sharing clause reference and deadline, or letter of authority, or none |
| Status | Months complete this year; months estimated; months missing |
| Last change | Date and nature of the last supplier, meter or tenancy change and the closing read |
Frequently asked questions
Q1. What utility data does ESG reporting need?
Monthly consumption for each fuel serving the building (electricity, natural gas, district heating or steam, fuel oil) and for water, for the full reporting year, with each supply tagged as landlord-controlled or tenant-controlled and the floor area it serves. Frameworks such as GRESB also ask for the share of floor area covered by actual data, and emissions laws such as Local Law 97 and BERDO need the whole-building total.
Q2. What is whole-building energy data and why do frameworks want it?
The combined consumption of every supply to the building, whether the landlord or the tenants pay for it. Emissions laws fine the owner on the whole building's emissions, and the ENERGY STAR score is calculated on whole-building consumption, so landlord-only data is not enough. Collecting the tenant-paid share is the hard part.
Q3. How do you collect tenant utility data?
Four ways, often combined: a data-sharing clause in the lease with a deadline and consent to use the data; a letter of authority that lets the landlord obtain the data from the tenant's supplier; Green Button Connect My Data authorisation where the utility supports it; and a utility aggregated whole-building data programme, which gives the building total without individual tenant consent where enough accounts exist to keep tenants anonymous. Landlord sub-metering at re-letting removes the problem for future tenancies.
Q4. How does utility data get into ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager?
Three ways documented by the EPA: manual entry meter by meter, spreadsheet upload using the Portfolio Manager templates, or automated exchange through web services from a utility that offers whole-building data delivery or from a service provider connected to your property system. Portfolio Manager needs twelve full consecutive months for every active meter to calculate a score.
Q5. What data quality checks should be run on utility data?
Completeness (every meter has a reading each month), calendarisation of billing periods, unit consistency with conversion factors recorded, estimated bills flagged and replaced by actuals, variance over 20% investigated, cost per unit within a plausible band, sub-meter and whole-building reconciliation, boundary tags on every supply, identifiers kept through supplier and meter changes, and a source document linked to every figure.
Related reading
- ESG in property management: a practical framework for operators
- Green lease clauses: what they oblige and how to draft them
- Local Law 97 compliance guide
- BERDO reporting: Boston's emissions rules for property managers
- NetSuite utility billing and meter management
- Commercial building energy audits: what a manager must arrange
