Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Tribal Solar Deployment
Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Tribal Solar Deployment is a project that seeks to address policy challenges or barriers that affect solar projects differently or disproportionately because they are located on Tribal land. This three-part guidebook presents significant regulatory challenges and associated solutions, case studies of Tribal solar deployment projects, and briefs highlighting issues that are uniquely or specifically relevant to solar deployment on Tribal land.
A Comparison of Multifamily Green Building Certifications
Green building certifications provide benefits for a wide range of building stakeholders, with a focus on residents. The systems establish a roadmap that development teams can use to design and construct healthy, highly efficient buildings. This review provides a comparison of multifamily green building certifications to help stakeholders understand the relevant requirements and value proposition of each rating system. Analysis focuses on the application of these certifications to multifamily affordable developments in Colorado, including Housing Tax Credit developments.
Transforming Existing Buildings from Climate Liabilities to Climate Assets
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.
Energy Service Agreements for Deep Efficiency and Electrification Retrofits of Affordable Multifamily Housing in California
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.
Facilitating Building Decarbonization through Utility Allowances
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.
Tariffed On-Bill to Finance Energy Efficiency and Decarbonization Retrofits for Multifamily Buildings in California
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.
State of Wisconsin Clean Energy Plan
Wisconsin's Clean Energy Plan is a pathway for decarbonization that prioritizes environmental justice, a diverse workforce, and technology innovation.
Michigan Healthy Climate Plan
Michigan's action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition toward economy-wide carbon neutrality.
Developing an Equitable Building Decarbonization Strategy for Chicago
This report includes recommendations and strategies from the Chicago Building Decarbonization Policy Working Group convened in 2021.
Out of Gas, In with Justice
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.