Empirical Evaluation of Owner-Focused Education for Portfolio-Scale Building Decarbonization

Decarbonizing the building sector is essential for climate mitigation, yet progress is frequently constrained by technical, financial, informational, and cultural barriers among building owners. This study empirically evaluates a targeted, owner-focused capacity-building intervention based on the Inform-Educate-Train-Support framework and the Stanford Building Decarbonization Learning Accelerator platform, aimed at enabling informed retrofit and energy transition decisions at the building portfolio scale. A 90-minute pilot seminar was delivered to a large institutional building owner and its administrators and facility managers (n = 180), with a purposive evaluation sample of 27 decision-makers. The seminar integrated climate science fundamentals with operational and embodied carbon concepts and practical decarbonization strategies for existing buildings, including electrification of HVAC systems, renewable energy integration, energy efficiency measures, and life-cycle-based decision metrics. A structured post-seminar assessment showed high short-term knowledge retention, with a mean accuracy of 95.2%. Follow-up actions - including energy contract reviews and requests for technical support - indicate early translation of knowledge into operational decarbonization processes. These results provide initial early empirical evidence that structured, owner-focused education can activate institutional decision-making and initiate portfolio-level building decarbonization pathways.