Buildings of 100,000 square feet and over must have their energy and water benchmarking report verified by a certified professional — in the first reporting year, and once every five years after that. It is a recurring statutory obligation, and relatively few firms are positioned to perform it.
Verification is an independent check that the data you reported is accurate, complete and correctly classified. A certified professional reviews the underlying utility records and property characteristics against what was submitted, and confirms — or corrects — the filing.
It is not an audit. Verification tells you whether your reported numbers are right. An audit tells you why they are what they are and what to do about them. Owners routinely confuse the two, and buy the wrong one.
| Applies to | Frequency | Performed by |
|---|---|---|
| Buildings of 100,000 sq ft and over reporting under Ontario EWRB | First reporting year, then once every five years | A certified professional, independent of the filing |
Verification is recurring. It is not a one-time exercise at first registration. Five years passes quietly, and the obligation returns whether or not anyone at the building remembers it. If your building first reported in 2022, verification is due again — check the date.
In our experience the same handful of issues account for most corrections:
None of these are unusual, and none reflect badly on a building manager. Portfolio Manager is unforgiving software and the rules are specific. That is precisely why the regulation requires an independent check.
Verification must be performed by a certified professional, independent of the party that prepared the filing. In practice, buyers look for a Professional Engineer, a Certified Energy Manager, or equivalent recognised credential, with demonstrable Portfolio Manager competence.
EnerSolution holds these credentials in-house and operates as a Natural Resources Canada Registered Service Organization. We perform verification both for buildings we file for and for buildings filed by others.
Verification requires the reporting year's data to be complete and the source records available. Starting in the weeks before the 1 July deadline leaves no room to resolve a discrepancy — and discrepancies are common. Begin in the first quarter.
Not for verification, though annual reporting still applies at 50,000 sq ft and over. Confirm your gross floor area against the measurement standard before concluding you are under the threshold — floor area is the single most commonly miscalculated figure in benchmarking.
Verification is meant to be independent of the filing. Where we perform both, they are handled by different personnel with documented separation. Where a program or owner requires full independence, we will say so and perform only one of the two.
They are corrected and the filing is resubmitted. That is the purpose of the exercise. A correction found by your verifier is an administrative task; the same error found by a regulator, a lender or a purchaser during due diligence is a different conversation.
For a single building with complete records, typically two to three weeks. Portfolios and buildings with tenant-metered load take longer, mostly in assembling source data rather than in the review itself.
Related
Request a proposal
A compliance deadline, an incentive application, a financing requirement, or a capital plan. Tell us which, and we will tell you what you need and what it will cost — as a fixed fee, before any work starts.
If you do not need an audit, we will say so.