Small commercial buildings, or those comprising less than 50,000 square feet of floor area, represent 94% of U.S commercial buildings by count and consume approximately 8% of the nation’s primary energy; as such, they represent a largely unexploited opportunity for energy savings. Small commercial buildings also represent a large economic market—the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) estimated the small commercial retrofit market at USD 35.6 billion. Despite the prominence of small commercial buildings and the economic opportunity for energy retrofits, many energy efficiency programs focus on large commercial buildings, and create efficiency solutions that do not meet the needs of the small commercial market. This paper presents an analysis of 34 small commercial case study projects that implemented energy efficiency retrofits. This paper contributes to the existing building retrofit body of knowledge in the following ways: (1) it identifies the decision criteria used by small commercial building stakeholders that decided to complete an energy retrofit; (2) it identifies the most commonly implemented efficiency measures in small commercial buildings, and discusses why this is the case; and (3) it provides empirical evidence about the efficacy of installing single energy efficiency measures (EEMs) compared to packages of EEMs in small commercial buildings by reporting verified energy savings. To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to catalog decision criteria and energy savings for the existing small commercial buildings market, and this research illustrates that small commercial building decision-makers seem most motivated to retrofit their spaces by energy cost savings and operational concerns. Furthermore, small commercial building decision-makers opted to implement single-system retrofits in fifteen (15) of the thirty-four cases studied. Finally, this research documents the improved savings, in the small commercial buildings market, associated with a more integrated package of EEMs compared to a single-system approach, achieving approximately 10% energy savings for a single-system approach and more than 20% energy savings for integrated approaches. These savings translate to CO2 savings of 1,324,000 kgCO2/year to 2,647,000 kgCO2/year, respectively, assuming small commercial buildings are retrofit at a rate of 0.95% of the stock annually.

The study presented in this article investigates the practice of validation, which is not supported by the current literature. In this study, data was collected from subject matter experts through phone interviews. A multiple case study method was leveraged to characterize validation through the analysis of empirical data from remarkable project validation efforts. Project validation aims at proving or disproving with limited or no design whether the team can deliver a project that satisfies the owner's business case and scope within the owner's allowable constraints of cost and schedule and with an acceptable level of risk. During validation, multidisciplinary innovation clusters within the team investigate, compare, and propose distinct options for major project components, and enable the team to collaboratively select an option for the conceptual estimate without committing to the design of such option. Exploring solutions with a multidisciplinary lens without committing to their design enables the team, later on during design, to make decisions on solutions that ensure the cumulative impact of such solutions and further increase value to the owner. Validation culminates in a go/no-go decision, is undertaken following the business case and precedes the contractual agreement, and must have a dedicated budget, schedule, and project team. This article characterizes what validation is, when it is performed, how it should be implemented, and its benefits. Lessons learned are also discussed. When properly implemented, subject matter experts express that validation virtually eliminates cost and schedule deviations.

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