A pattern we've watched build through 2025 and into 2026: energy and carbon data is increasingly part of the refinancing package on BC commercial, mixed-use, and multifamily assets. It isn't always called that — sometimes it's labelled "operating efficiency," "environmental disclosure," or "transition risk." But the questions are recognizably the same, and the answers are recognizably absent in most owners' files.
This piece is a short field guide for owners and asset managers heading into a refinancing window.
What's being requested
The specific package varies by lender, asset class, and loan size, but the request usually pulls from this set:
- Twelve to thirty-six months of utility consumption data by fuel, weather-normalized, with the methodology stated.
- EUI and GHGI with their basis declared: floor-area definition, in-scope spaces, weather year, estimated vs metered slices.
- An ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager benchmark for asset classes where ESPM has reasonable peer coverage.
- A capital-plan view of how performance is expected to change over the next five to ten years, particularly where local regulations have performance limits on the trajectory.
It is not exotic data. But it has to actually exist before due diligence opens, not after.
What gets flagged
Three patterns pull owners aside for follow-up:
Inconsistent or undocumented assumptions between the lender's package and the owner's most recent annual disclosure. The numbers don't have to match across documents — the methodology gap has to be explained.
Missing months in the utility data series, especially where the gaps coincide with vacancy, ownership change, or known operational issues. A six-month gap without a narrative reads as a hidden problem.
No forward-looking plan. Lenders increasingly want to see that the owner has a view on how the asset's energy and carbon trajectory aligns with the loan term, not just where the asset is today.
A refinance can usually proceed without this package being perfect. But owners who walk in with it organized close faster, with fewer conditions, and — at the margins — at materially better terms.
That's the case for assembling the data before the rate-lock window opens, not during it.
Looking at a refinancing window? Get in touch to scope an energy-data readiness review.