With a shifting funding landscape and unique equity considerations, affordable housing providers are seeking resources and guidance on how to best incorporate decarbonization strategies across their portfolios. This brief summary reviews the findings of Enterprise's efforts to understand how affordable housing providers are engaging with decarbonization and what is needed to advance the field. The brief makes recommendations for the development of new resources and tools.

Compiling national outdoor air pollution data from across the government and other expert sources, this report shows the extent of the harm caused to people and the environment from fossil fuel burning equipment in homes and buildings, the disproportionate impact this pollution has on environmental justice communities and other vulnerable demographic groups, and how the use of methane gas in buildings is connected to the broader system of methane gas extraction and distribution.

This report looks at the existing research on climate and housing in the U.S, in two key areas: how housing decarbonization and production strategies can reduce pollution to mitigate climate change, and how climate change impacts renters, homeowners, and the broader housing industry. The paper also identifies key research gaps where more evidence would help policymakers to navigate the tensions between different policy approaches.

WE ACT's Out of Gas, In with Justice pilot studied the feasibility and benefits of electrification in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) by comparing improvements to air quality and participant satisfaction between 10 apartments with induction stoves and 10 with their existing gas stoves. It is the first study of its kind to focus on the effects of residential cooking electrification with tenants in-place in an urban public housing setting with low-income residents and residents of color. This pilot offers lessons for policymakers, public housing agencies, and affordable housing providers on cooking electrification and its impact on indoor air quality, social acceptance of electrification measures, and infrastructure challenges for existing housing in environmental justice communities.

National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) supported the leadership of the Building Energy, Equity, and Power (BEEP) coalition in creating this issue brief. The brief examines how we can center the leadership of disinvested communities and integrate health equity in building decarbonization to create a more just and equitable future.

Retrofitting buildings is a critical climate strategy, but we cannot ignore the embodied carbon impact of these retrofits. The production, transportation, and installation of materials all come with their own carbon footprints. This report provides data to support using low-carbon and carbon-storing materials in deep energy retrofits to reduce net emissions and transform buildings into climate assets. Lower embodied carbon options exist today and can be substituted for traditional materials.

Over half of California’s 3.2 million multifamily units were constructed before energy efficiency standards, resulting in poor performance and high greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, affordable multifamily housing must improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and lower tenant utility bills while enhancing quality of life. Yet building owners face many challenges to improving the performance of their buildings. This report covers the role certain types of energy service agreements, combined with federal incentives, can play in scaling affordable multifamily retrofits.

One of the most pressing challenges in electrifying multifamily housing is the issue of split incentives for housing providers. Although housing providers want to prioritize the health, comfort and safety of residents by transitioning to all electric buildings, they encounter many difficulties trying to finance electrification. This report describes how utility allowance methods affect a property’s operating income and residents’ energy burdens, and it examines the impact of utility allowances on affordable housing electrification.

This report delves into the critical role of building decarbonization in achieving California’s ambitious climate goal of net-zero emissions by 2045. To equitably decarbonize the residential buildings sector, Californians need accessible and affordable clean energy financing strategies to make significant investments to electrify and reduce energy consumption in all aspects of their daily lives.

Wisconsin's Clean Energy Plan is a pathway for decarbonization that prioritizes environmental justice, a diverse workforce, and technology innovation.