The first annual Pittsburgh Municipal Building Benchmarking Report, released last week, was written by School of Architecture PhD-BPD candidate Flore Marion and the Sustainability and Resilience Division of the Department of City Planning. Flore's dissertation, titled The Impact of Benchmarking and Transparency Ordinances on stakeholder interactions and building energy efficiency, evaluates the effectiveness of benchmarking legislation in Pittsburgh and other major cities throughout the US.
The Benchmarking Report is part of Pittsburgh's goal to eliminate water and energy waste and is a testament to the ways in which the SoA and City of Pittsburgh can work together to achieve shared goals. It is exciting to see the work from Flore's dissertation being utilized by the City to facilitate change and demonstrates how SoA PhD students are using their research to be leaders in industry.