Building Conservation and Energy Efficiency — A Toolkit for Municipalities
Posted August 22, 2025
Chester County, along with many of its municipalities, has made commitments to aid in the transition to cleaner and more renewable energy to address the global challenge of climate change at the local level. The tools available for doing so vary by level of government, and one of the most effective at the municipal level is through local ordinances.
The most current Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission forecast projects that by 2050, the population will be 645,673, an increase of 111,260 (17.2%) residents from the enumerated 2020 Census population. This population growth will require additional housing, schools, employment establishments, and more — all of which will be subject to land use regulations at the local level.
These new buildings could be developed under the status quo, continuing to contribute to the 59 percent of the county's greenhouse gas emissions generated by building energy use. Or, they can be more thoughtfully designed to achieve greater levels of energy efficiency and incorporate renewable energy solutions.
To support this effort, the Chester County Planning Commission (CCPC) teamed up with the Montgomery County Planning Commission to develop a toolkit designed to help municipalities use their codes and ordinances to encourage new buildings with the lowest energy impact possible. The toolkit is available on CCPC's website.
The toolkit identifies several overall strategies for both regulating and incentivizing energy conservation, efficiency, building electrification, and renewable energy through the land development process. Examples include:
- Requiring building orientation to take advantage of passive solar gain and designing landscaping to block winter winds and summer sun, and to be permeable to summer breezes and winter sun.
- Encouraging sustainable design features through the conditional use process.
- Amending building code language adopted by the municipality and/or adopting a "stretch code" (A set of standards that goes beyond the base building energy code to achieve higher levels of energy efficiency and sustainability).
- Adopting policies that support energy efficiency, renewable energy, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
For each strategy, the toolkit lists several examples of ordinances already in place across Pennsylvania municipalities.
Additionally, the toolkit identifies opportunities for municipalities to address energy usage in existing buildings that are not part of the land development process. This could include requiring building inspection prior to transfer of ownership, and/or adopting a building benchmarking policy or building performance standard.
If your municipality is interested in exploring the adoption of policies and ordinances to support clean energy, please reach out to sObfuscationustainability@Obfuscationchesco.org to discuss your ideas.