Full Title: Financing Building Decarbonization: Leveraging a Sector-Wide Emissions Model to Prioritize Capital Flows
Author(s): Drew Ades, Martha Campbell, Tamara George, Tricia Holland, Charlotte Matthews, James Mitchell, Nathaniel Ramos, Raghuram Sunnam, and Lacey Tan
Publisher(s): Rocky Mountain Institute
Publication Date: March 27, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Real estate actors across the United States are at the precipice of a major climate opportunity. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the increased focus by investors, lenders, regulators, and policymakers on building decarbonization, positions the sector to take meaningful action.
To inform this opportunity, RMI conducted a bottom-up carbon analysis of the US building stock to determine the relative operational emissions for each segment. To the knowledge of RMI, this is the most detailed US buildings emissions model created to date. This report provides a breakdown of US building carbon emissions by segment, subsegment, and building size and identifies the building types with the greatest opportunity for emissions reductions. The report also proposes actions that lenders, investors, and regulators can take to increase the flow of capital to segments responsible for the greatest proportion of emissions.