BOULDER, Colo. — Residential and commercial buildings account for 35 to 40 percent of total energy consumption worldwide, notes Navigant Research. Commercial buildings, in particular, consume large amounts of energy related to HVAC, water heating, lighting, and other building systems. Efforts to reduce energy consumption have led to increasing deployments of energy efficiency retrofits for commercial and public buildings. According to a new report from the research firm, the worldwide market for energy efficiency retrofits in commercial and public buildings will grow from $68.2 billion in 2014 to $127.5 billion by 2023.

“Because the existing building stock dwarfs the amount of new building space being added on an annual basis, energy efficiency retrofits are a critical pathway to greening the world’s commercial buildings,” said Eric Bloom, principal research analyst with Navigant Research. “Enrollment in voluntary green building certification programs has been on the rise around the world, even as regulatory and policy measures in a growing number of regions provide strong support for energy efficiency retrofits.”