A recent study published by Bloomberg Finance L.P. and The Business Council for Sustainable Energy shows that since 1980, energy intensity of commercial buildings has decreased more than 40 percent, which can be attributed, in part, to higher levels of efficiency in new buildings and improvements to hardware and operations relating to HVAC systems within older buildings.
The study further notes that although a commercial building in 2012 had far more electricity-consuming appliances than its equivalent in 1980, buildings today are not consuming substantially more electricity per square foot than they were then. In other words, increased electricity use has been offset by improvements to HVAC and lighting efficiency.