Why Clear Ownership Is Essential to Reducing Building Energy Use

Clear ownership is the single most important factor in improving commercial building performance and reducing energy consumption. Without someone accountable for outcomes, efficiency initiatives stall, recommendations go unimplemented, and operating costs remain higher than necessary.

This article explains why ownership matters, what effective ownership looks like, and how building owners can establish accountability to drive energy reduction across in-house and outsourced teams.

Why Do Buildings Fail to Reduce Energy Use Without Clear Ownership?

Building performance and energy management typically fall into a gray zone between multiple parties. Property managers handle tenant relations. Facility teams maintain equipment. Sustainability consultants conduct audits. Each touches energy use, but none owns the outcome.

When services are outsourced, fragmentation worsens. A property management firm may subcontract mechanical maintenance to one vendor, controls to another, and cleaning to a third. Each contractor optimizes within their scope, but no one optimizes the building as a whole.

This creates three predictable problems:

Misaligned incentives. Property managers focus on tenant satisfaction and lease renewals. Facility management companies meet contractual service levels. Neither is rewarded for reducing energy consumption or improving efficiency.

Information silos. Third-party teams possess detailed operational knowledge, but this knowledge rarely surfaces unless something breaks.

Lost institutional memory. When the engineer who understood your building's quirks moves to another account, that knowledge disappears. Inefficiencies that had been identified get forgotten.

As a result, building owners bear the consequences of poor performance while the parties closest to operations have little incentive to address it.

What Does Effective Performance Ownership Look Like?

Genuine ownership requires three elements working together.

Authority. The performance owner must have decision-making power over systems, schedules, and investments. This includes the ability to direct contractors, adjust operating parameters, and recommend capital improvements.

Accountability. The owner must answer for outcomes, not activities. This means specific, measurable targets, e.g. energy use intensity, utility cost per square foot, carbon emissions, with real consequences for hitting or missing them.

Resources. Accountability without resources guarantees failure. Performance owners need data access, analytical tools, and sufficient budget to investigate issues and implement solutions.

Who Should Own Building Performance?

Each building needs one clear owner for performance and energy outcomes: a single point of accountability. When multiple parties share ownership, no one truly owns it.

The owner must be someone within your building's operational structure who can actually implement changes. Specialist energy consultants can analyze data and recommend improvements, but they don't turn wrenches or adjust controls. The owner must be someone who can make things happen on the ground.

Several roles can serve as the performance owner:

Property managers oversee the building holistically: coordinating contractors, managing budgets, and handling tenant relations. They're well-positioned when performance requires balancing operational efficiency with tenant satisfaction and lease obligations.

Facility managers focus on day-to-day building operations, maintenance, and equipment performance. They're closest to the systems that consume energy and often have the technical understanding to identify and implement improvements.

Technical managers or building engineers bring deeper engineering expertise and direct control over mechanical, electrical, and controls systems. They're ideal when buildings have complex systems requiring specialized knowledge.

The right choice depends on your building's complexity, the technical capability of each role, and where operational authority actually sits. In some structures, the facility manager reports to the property manager; in others, they operate independently. Choose the person who has both the technical understanding to know what needs to change and the authority to make it happen.

While only one party should own the outcome, performance metrics should still cascade into every relevant contract: facility management, mechanical maintenance, controls, cleaning. The owner sets direction and is judged on results. The supporting parties execute and are measured on their contribution.

How Do You Align Incentives Across Outsourced Teams?

Assigning an owner is necessary but insufficient. Improvement only happens when everyone involved in implementation understands why performance matters and is evaluated on outcomes.

1. Cascade accountability through contracts.

If your property manager is evaluated solely on tenant satisfaction and expense control, they will prioritize those things exclusively. Adding energy metrics to their scorecard changes what they pay attention to—and how they manage facility teams beneath them.‍

2. Extend metrics to contractors.

If your mechanical maintenance contractor is paid to complete preventive maintenance checklists, that is what they will do. Building performance targets into their contract, or structuring bonuses around efficiency outcomes, gives them reason to think beyond the work order in front of them.‍

4. Invest in training and communication.

The building engineer adjusting a setpoint needs to understand how that action affects overall performance. When teams understand the reasoning behind efficiency measures, they make better decisions in the countless small moments that determine how a building operates.

5. Make performance visible.

When facility teams see that leadership reviews energy data with the same rigor as financial statements, behavior shifts. Ongoing conversation and consistent reinforcement matter as much as contractual terms.

Why Does This Matter for Asset Value?

The stakes extend beyond utility bills. Efficient buildings command premium rents and attract tenants focused on sustainability. They face less risk from rising energy costs and tightening regulations. They require less capital to maintain comfort as they age.

Buildings with clear performance ownership improve over time. Problems get corrected before they compound. Equipment gets optimized rather than merely maintained. Upgrades get evaluated on lifecycle value rather than first cost alone.

Buildings without ownership drift toward mediocrity. Small inefficiencies accumulate. Deferred maintenance becomes deferred investment. By the time problems surface in tenant complaints or budget overruns, catching up requires far more capital and disruption than continuous attention would have demanded.

Key Takeaways

• Building performance fails to improve when no one is clearly responsible for outcomes
• Effective ownership requires authority, accountability, and resources working together
• Outsourced teams need performance metrics in their contracts, not just service-level agreements
• Specialist consultants only add value when implementation teams also have skin in the game
• Cascading accountability through every layer, from property managers to maintenance technicians, is essential for execution
• Owners must maintain enough internal expertise to oversee third parties effectively

The technical solutions for improving building performance exist, but he barriers can also be organizational. Assigning clear ownership and ensuring that accountability flows through the entire operating structure is where improvement begins. But even with clear ownership, driving results requires the right data, expertise, and follow-through.

Next Sense helps building owners move beyond dashboards to real results. We bring your data together in one platform, identify where energy is being wasted, and work with you through regular expert sessions to turn insights into action. Get in touch to see how your building is really performing.