Smart Electrification with Renewables: Driving the Transformation of Energy Services

The world has made the transition from one dominant form of energy to another several times. The replacement of fossil fuels with renewables marks the next historic shift. Yet, to ensure sustainability and global climate stability, this latest energy transformation needs to happen much faster.

Countries around the world need a vast expansion of renewables, smarter and more flexible electricity grids, and huge increases in the numbers of vehicles and other products and processes that run on electricity. Those three elements – combined in a “Smart Electrification” strategy – will be crucial in shaping the world’s new, renewable-dominated energy system.…

MUSH Market Building Financing Options for Energy Efficiency Improvements

Buildings owned by municipal and state governments, universities, schools, and hospitals, otherwise known as the MUSH market, represent great potential for states to pursue energy savings. The opportunity for energy efficiency retrofits in the MUSH market could be as much as $66–208 billion in unrealized energy savings. However, MUSH market building owners face challenges that prevent them from completing the deep retrofits necessary to achieve high levels of energy savings. These challenges include tight budgets and high deferred maintenance needs, a lack of familiarity with available finan…

Lifecycle GHG Impacts in Building Codes

NBI’s report presents language to incorporate embodied carbon requirements in building codes. Researchers explain the need to address the embodied carbon of the highest emitting materials and the carbon emission benefits for jurisdictions. Until the report’s release, there was a lack of understanding of what a regulation on embodied carbon would look like in a U.S. base code. The code acknowledges the importance of building materials in the construction industry and aims to achieve practical reductions in climate impact by selecting lower embodied carbon materials. Example code language can be adopted by jurisdictions starting with EPD reporting to target GWP …

Prioritizing Effective Infrastructure-Led Development

Infrastructure, land use, and real estate development are intrinsically linked. Over the coming
years, U.S. communities face many challenges that will be difficult to manage, including a lack of housing affordability, entrenched inequities in the built environment, and a changing climate. These issues are compounded by the combined challenge of maintaining current infrastructure while needing to invest in forward-looking infrastructure.

As the United States prepares to make the largest infrastructure investment in a generation, an opportunity exists for ULI members and key partners to identify and promote more equitable and resilient infrastructure investments that create both long-term …

Quantifying the Air Quality Impacts of Decarbonization and Distributed Energy Programs in California

This report estimates the health benefits associated with reducing air pollutant emissions from fossil fuel combustion. The report finds that eliminating fossil fuel emissions from buildings and transportation, for example through electrification, would yield monetized health benefits of $44 billion per year, based on detailed air quality modeling by UC Irvine, and that eliminating emissions from natural gas generators would yield benefits of $1 billion per year. The benefits are due to improved health and the avoidance of 4,950 premature deaths per year (across all sectors modeled). Much of these benefits would accrue in disadvantaged communities, which have historically borne …

Unlocking the Mission Critical Building Decarbonization Opportunity in the SMB Sector

In this whitepaper, Sustainable Real Estate Solutions, Inc. (SRS) analyzes the ambitious goal to reduce U.S. commercial and multifamily buildings’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% by 2030. The report describes the market for energy-consuming equipment replacement and the potential for GHG emissions reduction by sector. It also explores the barriers to energy efficiency upgrades in small and medium-sized buildings (SMB) which are responsible for an estimated 41% of GHG emissions from commercial and multifamily buildings – a sector that is mission critical if the U.S. is to achieve its GHG emissions reduction goal. Finally, the report discusses policy implications …

2021 California Green Innovation Index

The report finds total greenhouse gas emissions dropped 1.6 percent between 2018 and 2019—the second largest percentage decrease since 2010—but far short of what is needed to comply with California’s mandate to cut emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. California must now sustain a 4.3 percent annual decrease through 2030—a reduction that is more than 2.5 times greater than was achieved in 2019. While California’s vibrant clean energy economy is supporting strong job numbers, it is failing to deliver the necessary annual emissions reductions, as slowing renewable energy growth, underwhelming transportation sector gains, and a worrisome cross-sector over-dependence …

Energy Efficiency 2021

Energy Efficiency 2021 is the IEA’s annual update on global developments in energy efficiency. This year’s edition explores recent trends in energy efficiency markets at the economy-wide and sectoral levels, including developments in policy and investment.

The report also focuses on the role of energy efficiency in achieving net zero emissions in the energy sector by 2050, including an examination of the crucial role of efficient appliances and equipment, as well as all major energy efficiency net zero milestones in buildings, transport and industry.

In addition, the report analyses recent trends in digital innovation, examining how digitalization is expanding the …

Carbon Trading for New York City’s Building Sector

NYU researchers released the first study to rigorously assess the predicted impacts of Local Law 97 of 2019 (LL97), the City of New York’s signature climate law. The law caps the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that large buildings can release, starting in 2024.

The study assessed the impact that adding an emissions trading program would have on environmental justice communities and proposes ways to increase investment and emissions reductions in those areas. The study offers two options for trading programs designed to improve outcomes under LL97. Both options would benefit the City as a whole, and environmental justice communities …

Los Angeles Affordable Housing Decarbonization Study Phase 2

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