In her address, Clinton presented a look at the strides California has made in mandating retrocommissioning on all public buildings. Under the Governor's Executive Order, state government buildings greater than 50,000 square feet are required to be retrocommissioned. This means that 250 buildings, or 38 million square feet, will be retrocommissioned.

Clinton called commissioning "the shining light on the horizon" as she discussed how to attract owners to commissioning, the value proposition of commissioning, how to go about ensuring persistence, and how commissioning fits into the business model for energy efficiency. Clinton also offered three strategies for improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings: Think smarter, commissioning needs to become standard practice; dig deeper, shoot for ways to achieve 30-40 percent savings in buildings; and increase breadth, touch more buildings with energy-efficiency improvements.

Craig Sheehy, the keynote lunch speaker of Thomas Properties Group, addressed a crowd of 400 regarding his Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design® for Existing Buildings (LEED®-EB) Platinum-certified California Environmental Protection Agency commercial building in Sacramento. Sheehy stressed the importance of building relationships between commissioning providers and the commercial real estate industry, the green bottom line, and how Thomas Properties Group succeeded in achieving LEED certification, the only LEED-EB-certified Platinum building in the nation.

For more reports, see the articles "HVAC or Starbucks?" and "Get Up to Date on Data Logging" in this issue.

Publication date: 06/12/2006