
GasMeters
Gas meters. Google Commons photo
There’s a lot of debate over whether Newton residents and businesses are ready for a BERDO (Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance). But is the city ready for it, structurally speaking?
“The city of Newton started our preparation for BERDO long before we knew BERDO was a thing,” Josh Morse, public building commissioner for the city said to the Zoning & Planning Committee Monday night.
A BERDO is a locally imposed mandate for building owners to report energy consumption and report greenhouse gas emissions on a timetable to keep with state and federal emissions reduction goals. Boston has a BERDO in place already. So does Cambridge.
While climate change is largely exacerbated by vehicles and transportation, it’s estimated that about a third of the state’s carbon emissions come from buildings. There are 356 buildings in Newton that qualify to be covered by the BERDO mandate.
The city began transitioning public building heating away from fossil fuels to fully electric about eight years ago, Morse explained.
The city converted the HVAC system of the Early Childhood Program building to electric, followed by Lincoln-Eliot Elementary School, which is set to be finished next summer.
“We’re a slow-moving machine, so design takes time,” Morse said.
The Cooper Center, the Countryside School, Franklin Elementary School and the Horace Mann extension project are all set to run on electric heat.
The city has been phasing other buildings in with electric heat pumps to reduce energy consumption.
“We are in good shape to be in full compliance with BERDO through 2040, with the projects that are going on right now, and through 2045 with the projects that we have in the CIP [capital improvement plan],” Morse said.
Newton’s original BERDO proposal did not include residential buildings, but there have been discussions about adding residential buildings with more than 20,000 square feet of floor space.
Councilor John Oliver took a straw poll asking the committee members if they supported a BERDO for only commercial buildings, and the committee voted unanimously in favor. A second straw poll asking about adding residential buildings with more than 20,000 square feet (with reporting starting in 2026) passed 6 to 2.
“If it’s wrong or whatever, we can change it or whatever we have to do,” Councilor Pam Wright said. “But we’re all going to have to make these changes at some point. We’re going to have to pay the piper sooner or later.”
Neither vote was binding. The committee is set to discuss a new version of a BERDO as well as hear concerns put forth by administrators of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, next month.
Charles River Chamber President Greg Reibman called into the meeting to urge caution with adding residential buildings to a BERDO.
“We have a climate crisis. We also have a housing crisis, we have an affordability crisis, and we have a housing shortage crisis. We do not know the implications of this on those second two issues.”