The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) has finalized the regulations implementing the Commonwealth’s Large Building Energy Reporting (LBER) policy, codified at M.G.L. c. 25A, § 20 and detailed in 225 CMR 27.00. LBER was enacted in the 2022 Act Driving Clean Energy and Offshore Wind and aims to increase transparency in energy usage.
The new regulations set the first statewide energy usage reporting deadline for large buildings, which is coming up on June 30, 2025. Building on our previous updates on LBER, here’s what the regulated community needs to know as the deadline approaches.
Who Must Report
The regulations define a building as a “an energy consuming structure located within a Parcel or a single, continuous energy-consuming structure that spans multiple Parcels,” and specify that a large building has a “Gross Floor Area equal to or greater than 20,000 square feet.” This means the policy applies to a broad swath of the built environment—commercial, industrial, multifamily, and institutional buildings.
How do you know if your building is covered? DOER published a final Covered Buildings List (CBL) on March 31, 2025, identifying properties subject to the new requirements, and sent letters to the record owners of those buildings. DOER recommends that building owners check the CBL to confirm whether their properties are covered and claim their buildings to ensure accurate record keeping and to receive compliance updates. DOER cautions that building owners should disregard any letters from “Mass Benchmarking” that direct them to register their buildings with an affiliated website. This third-party scam is not affiliated with DOER.
Reporting Requirements
A key feature of LBER is the division of reporting responsibilities. Distribution companies and municipal utilities bear the primary reporting burden, with building owners filling in the gap.
- Utilities: Municipal utilities and electric, gas, and steam distribution companies are required to report energy usage data for covered buildings directly to DOER by June 30 this year, and by May 30 every year hereafter.
- Building Owners: Owners (or their agents) must report any additional energy usage not captured by distribution companies or municipal utilities by June 30 each year. This may include usage like fuel oil, propane, wood, and on-site solar generation.
DOER will publish annually on its website an LBER disclosure report containing energy usage data at the individual building level.
Key Revisions to Draft Regulations
Much to the relief of the regulated community, DOER made a number of changes to the draft regulations, adding provisions to protect private information and ease the administrative and financial burden on certain building owners:
- DOER abandoned its intention in the draft regulations to also require all entities to report the cost associated with the energy usage reported.
- DOER changed course on certification requirements: the draft regulations required third-party verification of energy usage, while the final version states that building owners need to self-certify energy data.
- DOER will allow entities subject to municipal-level benchmarking policies (energy use reporting) or performance standards (emissions reduction requirements) to meet their LBER obligations by reporting the same information to the state that they report to their municipalities. While welcome news to building owners in Boston, Cambridge, Lexington, Newton, or other municipalities, those owner should also pay close attention to the state’s reporting thresholds, which differ from municipal requirements. Some local ordinances have larger floor area thresholds, fewer included uses, and more exemptions, and thus may exclude buildings that still appear on DOER’s Covered Buildings List.
- DOER will now allow owners of multi-building campuses with shared energy system and/or energy metering to meet their LBER obligations as a single reporting entity.
Looking Ahead
DOER is in the process of developing guidance on subjects including exempt building uses, a process for Building Owners to review and dispute utility-provided data, and other topics.
While LBER currently focuses on transparency and benchmarking, it may mirror the trajectory of the Boston and Cambridge rules, where energy reporting requirements have evolved into binding emissions limits. The data collected under LBER could provide the Commonwealth with a baseline for future policy development. Stay tuned for continuing updates.
