Energy Use Intensity (EUI): The Metric Every CRE Broker Must Understand

Energy Use Intensity is the single most important number for judging a commercial building's performance. Here is what it actually measures, what "good" looks like, and how to use it in real deals.

Published 2026-03-13 · By ecoMetric · fundamentals

If you work in commercial real estate, you are going to encounter Energy Use Intensity (EUI) in almost every technical conversation about a building — benchmarking reports, ESG disclosures, due diligence memos, utility analyses, and BPS compliance filings all rely on it. Yet many brokers, even seasoned ones, cannot confidently explain what EUI means or what a "good" number looks like.

This guide fixes that. EUI is not complicated once you have the intuition.

The definition

Energy Use Intensity (EUI) is a building's total annual energy consumption divided by its total floor area. In the United States it is typically reported as kBtu per square foot per year (thousand British thermal units per square foot per year).

Formula:

EUI = Total Annual Energy Use (kBtu) / Gross Floor Area (sq ft)

"Total annual energy use" includes all fuels — electricity, natural gas, steam, chilled water, fuel oil — converted to a common unit (kBtu) using standard conversion factors. The number is usually reported as either:

• Site EUI — the energy as measured at the building's meter.
• Source EUI — the energy as traced back to its generation source, including grid transmission losses. Source EUI is higher because it accounts for the inefficiency of producing and delivering the energy.

Site EUI is what most benchmarking laws and ENERGY STAR calculations use. When someone says "EUI" without qualifying, assume Site EUI.

Why EUI matters

EUI is the single cleanest way to compare buildings of very different sizes. A 1 million square foot building with 50,000 MMBtu of annual energy use has the same EUI as a 100,000 square foot building with 5,000 MMBtu — both are at 50 kBtu/sq ft/year. That means two buildings with wildly different footprints can be benchmarked against each other on like terms.

It also scales with the building's purpose. A hospital uses far more energy per square foot than a warehouse; EUI normalizes this so you compare hospitals to hospitals and warehouses to warehouses.

What good and bad EUI look like by property type

EUI varies dramatically by occupancy. Rough US averages from CBECS (Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey) benchmarks:

• Office (Class A/B/C): 60–100 kBtu/sq ft/year. New, efficient Class A trophy buildings can hit 40–55. Older Class B frequently runs 80–110. A poorly-operated Class C can exceed 130.
• Multifamily residential: 50–75 kBtu/sq ft/year typical.
• Hotel: 100–180 kBtu/sq ft/year depending on star level and climate.
• Retail (standalone): 70–120 kBtu/sq ft/year.
• Food service (restaurants): 250–450 kBtu/sq ft/year (high due to kitchen loads).
• Supermarkets: 200–350 kBtu/sq ft/year (refrigeration loads).
• Hospitals: 200–350 kBtu/sq ft/year.
• Lab / research: 300–600 kBtu/sq ft/year (ventilation and process loads).
• Warehouse (unrefrigerated): 15–40 kBtu/sq ft/year.
• Refrigerated warehouse: 80–150 kBtu/sq ft/year.
• Data center: 200–1,500+ kBtu/sq ft/year.

These are averages. The full distribution inside each category is wide — a new LEED Platinum office is in a different world from a 1960s Class B office.

Climate adjustment matters

A building's EUI depends heavily on its climate. The same building in Minneapolis will run a substantially higher EUI than in Phoenix because of heating loads; conversely, a building in Houston will run a higher cooling-season EUI than one in Boston.

Sophisticated benchmarks adjust for Heating Degree Days (HDD) and Cooling Degree Days (CDD) to produce a weather-normalized EUI that compares buildings across climate zones. ENERGY STAR scores already incorporate this normalization. Raw EUI does not.

EUI in benchmarking laws

Several Building Performance Standards use EUI directly as their compliance metric:

• Denver Energize Denver — sets EUI targets by property type, tightening to 2030 goals.
• Seattle — uses EUI benchmarks alongside emissions.
• Washington State Clean Buildings Act — uses EUI targets.

Other BPS laws (like NYC LL97) use emissions instead, but EUI still drives the underlying calculations. A high-EUI building is almost always a high-emission building.

EUI vs ENERGY STAR score

These are related but different measures:

• EUI is an absolute number — kBtu/sq ft/year. Lower is better.
• ENERGY STAR score is a percentile ranking (1–100) among buildings of the same property type. A score of 75 means the building performs better than 75% of comparable buildings nationally. A score of 50 is median.

ENERGY STAR scores are climate-normalized and property-type normalized, which makes them better for apples-to-apples comparison than raw EUI. Most sophisticated building analysis reports both.

How brokers should use EUI

In valuation: EUI correlates strongly with operating expense. A building at 60 kBtu/sq ft/year costs roughly 25–40% less to operate on a per-square-foot basis than a similar building at 100 kBtu/sq ft/year. That OpEx differential feeds directly into NOI and therefore cap-rate-adjusted value.

In tenant negotiations: A high-EUI building means higher pass-through operating costs. Sophisticated tenants now ask for EUI disclosure as part of LOI negotiations, especially in BPS cities.

In repositioning plans: A retrofit's payback calculation starts with a target EUI reduction. Taking a Class B office from 95 to 65 kBtu/sq ft/year usually means envelope + HVAC work. Knowing the current number lets you scope the project.

In BPS compliance: In EUI-based cities, the target EUI is your compliance threshold. Your current EUI vs the 2026, 2030, or 2035 target tells you exactly how much energy reduction is required.

In due diligence: Any building over 10 years old without a benchmarked EUI should be a flag. It means the owner hasn't been tracking — which usually means the building is underperforming.

Common EUI mistakes

Comparing EUIs across property types. A 180 kBtu/sq ft hospital is doing fine; a 180 kBtu/sq ft office is struggling. Always compare within property type.

Ignoring occupancy density. An office at 30% occupancy with a 70 kBtu/sq ft EUI would likely be 95 kBtu/sq ft at 90% occupancy. Vacancy rates distort EUI downward. Compare occupancy-adjusted numbers when possible.

Weighing Source vs Site incorrectly. Make sure you're comparing apples to apples. A source EUI of 120 is not "worse" than a site EUI of 90; they might be the same building.

Not weather-normalizing. A particularly hot summer can inflate cooling loads and push a building's raw EUI above its trend line. Multi-year weather-normalized EUI is more reliable than a single-year snapshot.

Where to find EUI data

For publicly benchmarked buildings (most Class A and B in major cities):

• NYC — NYC Open Data "Energy and Water Use Benchmarking" dataset.
• Boston — BERDO Year 1 Report, city open data.
• Washington DC — DOEE Benchmarking disclosure.
• Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle — each has public benchmarking datasets.
• Toronto — EWRB disclosure.

Commercial platforms (including ecoMetric) aggregate these public datasets and join them with property records so you can query EUI by address without navigating 14 different city portals.

The takeaway

EUI is the universal currency of building performance. Learn the typical range for each property type you work in. Memorize what "good" looks like in your market. Ask for it on every deal. Once you are fluent in EUI, you will read buildings differently — and your clients will notice.