Kansas City’s Future Depends on Smart Energy and Transportation Investments

By Austin Taylor

Kansas City is growing. Every year, we see new businesses open, new housing developments take shape and new infrastructure projects take center stage. But as we expand, are we making the right investments to ensure long-term success?

At Metropolitan Energy Center (MEC), we believe Kansas City can lead the nation in energy efficiency, modernized transportation and forward-thinking infrastructure. But to get there, we need to work together with residents, business owners, landlords, developers and city leaders to create solutions that are cost-effective, sustainable and beneficial for everyone. While we face critical challenges, the solutions are within reach.

The Challenges We Face

• Rising Energy Costs for Homes and Businesses: Older buildings often lack modern energy efficiency upgrades, leading to high utility costs for tenants and business owners. Simple upgrades, such as better insulation, updated HVAC systems and LED lighting, could significantly reduce monthly expenses, but many property owners aren’t sure where to start or how to fund these improvements.
  
  
• A Public Transit System That Needs More Support: Reliable public transportation is vital for Kansas City’s workforce and economy. While the streetcar expansion is progress, bus service, route expansion, and fleet electrification need greater investment to make transit more efficient and dependable.
  
  
• Preparing for a More Resilient Future: Energy and infrastructure investments should be financially sound and built to last. As energy costs fluctuate and technology advances, Kansas City has the opportunity to modernize buildings, transit and public infrastructure to lower costs and increase long-term efficiency.

The Solutions Are Within Reach

Kansas City already has a plan: the Climate Protection and Resiliency Plan, which provides a roadmap for smarter energy use, modernized transportation and cost-saving infrastructure investments. MEC is working closely with local businesses, contractors and property owners to put this plan into action in ways that benefit both residents and the private sector. Here’s how we can work together:

1. Partnering with Landlords and Developers on Energy Efficiency: Instead of mandates, Kansas City should focus on incentives and partnerships to make energy efficiency upgrades easier and more cost effective. With available funding and tax credits, property owners can upgrade insulation, HVAC systems and appliances—reducing long-term costs while increasing property value.
   
   
2. Investing in Smarter, More Reliable Public Transit: Businesses thrive when workers have reliable transportation and customers have better access to commercial districts. Investing in modernized transit, expanded routes, and electric bus technology will improve efficiency, reduce fuel costs, and support economic growth.
   
   
3. Maximizing State and Federal Funding for Infrastructure: With millions in state and federal grants available for energy, transportation and infrastructure projects, Kansas City has an opportunity to make cost-effective, forward-thinking investments without burdening taxpayers. We must use these funds wisely to improve roads, modernize buildings, and enhance public services.
   
   
4. Building a Skilled Workforce for the Future: As Kansas City modernizes its infrastructure, energy and transit systems, demand will grow for skilled labor in construction, electrical work, HVAC and clean energy technology. Expanding workforce development programs and partnering with trade schools, unions and contractors can create stable, high-paying jobs for local workers.

A Stronger Kansas City Starts with Smart Investments

Kansas City’s future depends on strategic planning and collaboration. By prioritizing cost-saving energy solutions, well-designed transit, and modern infrastructure, we can lower expenses, attract businesses, and keep our city competitive for decades to come.

The solutions exist. The funding is available. The partnerships are ready to be formed. Now, it’s time to take action. By working together, we can build a Kansas City that is efficient, cost-effective and built to last. Let’s invest wisely today so we can all benefit tomorrow.

Metropolitan Energy Center (MEC) is proud to announce its partnership with the City of Kansas City, Missouri and the Building Energy Exchange (BEEx) in a groundbreaking initiative to improve energy efficiency across the city’s building stock. The multi-year project will lay the foundation for establishing Building Performance Standards (BPS) in Kansas City, Missouri, ensuring that local buildings meet modern energy efficiency requirements.

Building Performance Standards require building owners to benchmark their energy usage, a critical first step in identifying energy-saving opportunities. St. Louis has already set a precedent by enforcing BPS, requiring building owners with Energy Use Intensity (EUI) scores below the standard threshold (52/54) to develop and implement improvement plans within 2-3 years.

The City of Kansas City, Missouri aims to follow suit by developing its own BPS policy, which will be proposed to the City Council at the project’s conclusion. The City of Kansas City, MO, with MEC and others, is also taking measures to provide training and jobs for those involved in implementing energy-saving upgrades.

“This initiative is a crucial step forward in creating a more sustainable and resilient Kansas City,” said Mary English, MEC’s Building Performance Program Manager. “By setting clear standards and offering support to property owners, we can significantly reduce energy waste, lower utility costs, and improve the occupancy health and quality of life for all Kansas City residents.”

MEC will play a pivotal role in this project by assisting the City of Kansas City, Missouri with policy development and stakeholder engagement. One of our key objectives is to conduct commercial building energy assessments, a critical task in identifying “low-hanging fruit” opportunities for energy savings at low or no cost. This critical step will dovetail with helping integrate benchmarking data into the City’s software, analyze building performance, and recommend cost-effective strategies to meet the proposed EUI threshold.         

The City of Kansas City, Mo. aims to collaborate with property managers and owners to establish reasonable EUI benchmarks and identify the most efficient, cost-effective measures to achieve these standards, supporting their broader goal of improving energy efficiency across the city. By the end of the project, the City of Kansas City, Missouri aims to propose a BPS policy that sets clear energy efficiency goals and provides the tools and support necessary for compliance.

“We encourage all building owners and property managers to actively engage with us during this process,” English added. “Your input and participation are vital to shaping a policy that is both effective and practical. Together, we can make Kansas City a leader in energy efficiency and sustainability.”

This initiative aligns with MEC’s mission to enhance resource efficiency, environmental health, and economic vitality in the Kansas City region and beyond. By setting the groundwork for Building Performance Standards, Kansas City, Missouri is taking a significant step toward a cleaner, greener, and more resilient future, advancing the city’s carbon neutrality goals for 2040.

Get Involved: Building owners and managers are encouraged to join upcoming public consultations and information sessions hosted by MEC and BEEx. Visit www.metroenergy.org/energy-solutions-hub or contact Mary English at 816-531-7283 for more details on how you can participate and stay informed.

About Metropolitan Energy Center: Metropolitan Energy Center is a non-profit organization based in Missouri, established in 1983. By leading the responsible use of natural and economic resources, MEC’s work benefits communities through increased energy efficiency, environmental sustainability, and economic prosperity. MEC works so that the benefits of clean energy use are available to all people. Our mission is to create resource efficiency, environmental health, and economic vitality in the Kansas City region and beyond. Find out more about our work at www.MetroEnergy.org.

Nine out of ten breaths are taken indoors. It’s time we see efficient buildings as a key component to human health. Our children’s health and lives literally depend on it.

^{written by Mary A English}

What is the first piece of technology that pops into your head when you think of energy efficient buildings? Is it solar panels on the roof? That is a common answer.  

Solar panels can be a freeing option for consumers that need a little more room in a tight household budget or want to make clean power, but solar panels do not make for energy efficiency per se. Solar panels provide energy generation. Efficiency is another word for conservation, which is the practice of making a building use less energy. Indeed, the cleanest energy is energy that we never use. There’s a lot of never-used energy involved when a building performs well.

Since joining the building performance industry in the mid-aughts – roughly sixteen years ago – I have seen firsthand how inefficient building features can lead to many painful problems in both residential and commercial buildings. Efficient building features, however, always seemed to lead to improvements in the lives of people who regularly used those buildings. One example of an energy efficient building feature is air sealing, which reduces drafts and heat loss by eliminating air leaks in the building around the chimney, plumbing penetrations, and recessed lights.

The Impact of Inefficient Building Features

Through the years, it became increasingly evident to me that building conditions are not the same across all areas of our metro. I realized that the benefits of energy efficiency need to reach a broader audience. But making that happen presented a challenge.

For building performance professionals there are four benefits of energy conservation that we can recite in our sleep: affordability, durability, comfort, and health. Comfort is usually the reason an energy professional is called by a homeowner to help. (Do you have a bedroom over your garage that is constantly hot in the summer; and cold in the winter, for example?) Affordability means that the cost of energy efficient upgrades can only be a reality for some customers. While all four benefits are important, it is the last one—health—that is most critical, yet services are not always achievable for those who desperately need that benefit.

The importance of energy upgrades for health is shown time and again, as more studies are done on the intersectionality of human health and building efficiency. With each study it is becoming clearer that our inefficient buildings may be the cause of much that physically ails humans—especially children.

A Case Study: The Link Between Weatherization and Childhood Asthma

One of these studies was published this summer by MEC in cooperation with Kansas City’s own Children’s Mercy Hospital (CMH) and the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC).[1] The results of the study indicate that weatherizing a home improves the health of children living in that home. Possible reasons could be that breathability of outdoor air matters, especially when that air comes inside, or that mold grows more commonly when outside air meets the air conditioned inside. Either way, something causes improvements in childhood asthma when a home is weatherized.

The research team used data from the wave of weatherization work MEC managed after passage of The Recovery Act in 2009. Most of the weatherization work done involved air sealing, insulation of the basement’s rim joist, and other energy efficiency improvements such as sealing around windows and doors (Wilson et al. 2023). During data analysis, CMH protected the personal identities of children and families, and economists from UMKC merged the MEC weatherization data with CMH childhood asthma data from the same homes to see if there was a significant link that changed the number of cases of childhood asthma in weatherized homes.

Then the research team compared that with a control group of homes constructed in all eras, even past 1983 (Wilson et al. 2023). This detail is a sign of good study design because most people think that homes built after 1983 complied with modern codes and were more energy efficient, but for most of our region’s municipalities, this is an incorrect assumption. The combined dataset was made up of single-family homes within Kansas City, MO city limits.

The strong correlation revealed in the results of this study turned out to be stunningly significant. The team’s analysis found that the weatherization program “reduced the frequency of pediatric asthma encounters for those children diagnosed with asthma residing in homes that received energy efficiency improvements” (Wilson et al. 2023). The difference between the weatherized set of homes and the control group where no weatherization was executed was a 34% reduction in hospital visits for asthma.

For building performance professionals who work in the field on existing buildings, this may not be surprising. Mold in energy deficient areas of buildings is not uncommon, for example. However, the significance of that statistic—the 34% of children who suffered less because of the energy efficiency upgrades—exceeded expectations for yours truly.

Implications for Policy and Codes

What do we do with this information? Well, first, good science means that this study will need further review. We have a strong correlation of reduced frequency and intensity of asthma attacks after weatherization, but more digging will need to be done by scientific peers to corroborate; and then to determine causation. Is the improved health because better insulation and air sealing keeps out poor outdoor air, like ozone? Or is it because it cuts down on condensation points (which can grow mold if undetected) that can occur when extreme weather seeps into buildings with conditioned air? We need answers. We at MEC hope this leads to further study.

In the meantime, however, this study supports those that advocate for better energy efficiency in our built environment. Policymakers can be assured that any improved codes policy—such as the passage of the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) in Kansas City, MO—is justified. And bonus! The timing of this report publication dovetails nicely with the rebates available to weatherize homes through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It is up to those of us in the industry to guide consumers towards best practices as our region updates its buildings.

Addressing Renters and Existing Buildings

This is true especially when you know that roughly half of our residents in the entire metro are renters. A common counter from those opposed to more robust energy efficiency laws has been that only a few people want it, and those people can pay for energy efficiency in their new homes. Contrasting against that sentiment, this report begs a new question. Are renting families who have zero power over the energy features of their home to be left out of affordability, durability, comfort, and health?

And what about the home buyer that assumes the law protects them from inadequate construction practices across the country? The data shows that the codes followed in the era when the residential structure was built had no discernible effect on the impact of weatherization on asthma cases. Unfortunately, codes have not protected citizens in all cases. However, the evident strong correlation in this study made it clear: weatherization means fewer severe asthma attacks and generally less intense asthma incidents.

In Kansas City, MO, we are on the right track with a robust energy code passed in 2022 to protect consumers, at last, for new home construction. We now need to apply what we have learned in the existing buildings market. Training contractors on energy efficiency’s human impacts should be an industry priority. (We at MEC hope that other municipalities in our metro follow the City of KCMO’s lead as well.)

In summary, better energy efficiency leads to better health in the home. What, as a society, are we going to do now that we know? Do we ask car buyers to pay extra for seatbelts? No, they are mandatory because they protect the passengers. We shouldn’t ask residents to pay extra for healthy lives brought about through energy efficient buildings.

[1] Wilson N, Aloumon C, Tauheed L, Kennedy K. 2023. The Impact of a Weatherization Program on the Health Outcomes for Children with Asthma. Metropolitan Energy Center. [accessed October 23, 2023]; https://mec.bluesym10.work/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Health-Impacts-of-EWKC-Program-Activities.pdf

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