Energy STAR for Commercial Buildings: Jurisdiction

Energy STAR for Commercial Buildings
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Energy STAR for Commercial Buildings
Introduction
Energy STAR is a United States-based agency that provides voluntary environmental protection services through a program that delivers financial values and ecological benefits via a powerful energy efficiency model. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) collaborates with public sectors and business organizations with the aid of Energy STAR to transform and monitor how industrial plants and commercial buildings use their energy (Kindström, Ottosson & Thollander, 2016). The ENERGY STAR program has helped industrial plants and commercial buildings to save over 190 billion U.S. dollars that they would have spent on energy in more than 20 decades that the firm has been operational (Sorrell, 2015). As a result, hundreds of thousands of facility managers and owners reach out to the firm's resources and tools to assist them in analyzing their energy expenditure and performance, earn recognition, and better their efficiency.
Summary
In summary, critics maintain that reducing energy demand and improving energy efficiency contributes significantly to managing factors that lead to global climate change. On the contrary, the correlation between increased consumption of energy and increased wealth at the global level is so high, and the effect of legislation to curb and reduce the demand of power is not only contested, but it is also limited. Different academic and organizational agencies use diverse approaches to reduce energy demand; some neglect significant mechanisms while others emphasize the use of irrelevant strategies. However, all agencies vary in their degree of optimism regarding the potential to provide useful insights that can help to reduce energy demand. This essay offers insights into the challenges and issues that relate to the reduction in energy demand, the role of policymakers in helping to reduce the effects of energy consumption in the environment, and recommendations that can help mitigate climate change.
Jurisdiction
Primarily, the human race has known its environment much longer before the introduction of the laws that are meant to protect the environment from humans. Environmental laws, which are otherwise referred to as a natural resource and environmental laws is a phrase which is synonymous with statutes, regulations, national, local, and international treaties and legislations orchestrated to explain the legal jurisdiction and to offer protection to the environment (Kindström, Ottosson & Thollander, 2016). Nonetheless, natural resource laws are not only limited to covering government –based legislation, but they also describe the urge by organizations and business agencies as well as their policies to collaborate towards enhancing moral standards through establishing mechanical principles and regulations for operating licenses. Necessarily, these would be laws whose operation would be limited within a specific jurisdiction (Sorrell, 2015). The Energy STAR uses this avenue to exercise their potency to man the use of energy as well as to protect and enhance the interplay between its consumption and the potential impact on the environment.
One of the most vital environmental laws that Energy STAR uses to monitor the interplay between energy intensive consumers and the environment is the abasement law. According to this law, the EPA has the mandate to reduce the intensity, quantity, or the saturation the energy through the treatment of the waste products that are produced thereby. Through this policy, the company ensures that organizations use biodegradable sources of energy which can be recycled and treated to reduce the accumulation of toxic effluent beyond manageable standards (Sorrell, 2015).
STAR mechanism and how it is applied to buildings
Energy Star is per se a symbol which is trusted and usually used by the government to denote the energy efficiency in commercial and domestic buildings. It serves to enable customers to protect the environment and save money (Gaspari, Lorenzoni, Frías & Reneses, 2017). In Mexico, Canada, and the United States, domestic and commercial programs aligned to; endorsement labeling, comparative labeling, test procedures, and Minimum Energy Performance Standards are vital aspects that help to support each state’s missions and goals in economic growth, environmental protection, and particularly in energy security (Sorrell, 2015). The Energy Star uses the following mechanisms to ensure that buildings in Canada and Mexico, which are in North America meet the Energy efficiency standards: firstly, stakeholder involvement is a prerequisite which requires every country to solicit the support and inputs from its commercial and domestic shareholders to harmonize endorsement labels, test procedures, and mutual acceptance of the research findings.
Additionally, Energy Star uses test procedures as a mechanism that enables Canada, Mexico, and the United States to verify whether or not the test procedures for electric motors, room air conditioners, freezers, and refrigerators are the same or nearly the same in all countries. Thirdly, the Energy Star program employs voluntary endorsement labels by consulting Mexico, Canada, and the United States to explore chances of extending its services to other North American states (Sorrell, 2015). Last but not least, Energy Star is working and investigating to determine other mechanisms for long-term harmonization and mutual recognition for the program’s test results to help harmonize its efficiency in buildings.
Large and small energy sectors
Human societies heavily depend on analogous systems of energy to distribute food, water, and other substances which they need on a day-to-day basis for survival. Therefore, they are prone to comparable limitations which display relative interactions between energy flows and system scale (Aasen, Westskog & Korneliussen, 2015). Moreover, research indicates that wealthier, large, complex, and densely populated societies expend relatively more significant sums of energy flows than their small counterparts which lessen the challenges associated with comparing human and physical systems of power. Companies and organizations which use large quantities of energy evolved through the ability to access to gradually abundant sources of electricity per day. This, in effect, made them adapt to those standards so much so that they cannot run on anything less than those flows (Sorrell, 2015). Additionally, the progressive increase in the global wealth and population from the beginning of the 19th century has led to a correspondent increase in the consumption of energy per household. Besides, as the rate of consuming energy increases, the speed of emitting effluents to the environment also increases, this leads to climate change.
Consumers in the energy sector
According to Aasen, Westskog & Korneliussen (2015) the global population has increased by ...