Multifamily Affordable Housing Decarbonization Toolkit

Much of the nation’s affordable housing stock is in need of major capital improvements, an issue compounded by pressures from city, state, and federal regulations — as well as pressing climate demands — to promptly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Simultaneously, recent policy developments, such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and greater availability of green financing tools create opportunities to better address affordable housing capital needs. However, taking advantage of these opportunities requires ongoing collaboration and coordination across a community of stakeholders.

In response to these opportunities and challenges, RMI and Wells Fargo Foundation hosted a series of regional workshops in four key market areas, including New York City (NYC) in May 2023, Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) in August 2023, California (CA) in February 2024, and Atlanta (ATL) in March 2024. We chose these areas because of our goal to prioritize regions with high energy burdens that have shown leadership in advancing decarbonization, climate action, and efforts to address housing affordability. The fifth and final workshop was hosted in Washington, D.C., in July 2024 and took a national scope, including a focus on how federal agencies and their initiatives interact and impact states and local municipalities.

To ensure the workshops remained deeply rooted in the local context and prioritized the effects of housing and climate policies on historically marginalized and underserved communities, we forged partnerships with local environmental justice experts and housing advocates. Together, these collaborators formed steering committees for each regional workshop series to contribute to the agenda design and ensure each workshop was tailored to the region’s specific needs. The series of workshops served as a crucial platform for identifying patterns and similarities across markets to address the most pressing barriers to decarbonizing the affordable housing stock. The primary objectives of the workshops included the following:

• Identify policy and regulatory solutions to address barriers to decarbonizing affordable housing in the target markets
• Understand tenant protection policies and programs necessary to avoid displacement during home retrofits/upgrades
• Identify strengths and gaps in funding capital improvements including decarbonization while preserving the affordable housing stock
• Compile action items and identify resources and roles needed to achieve proposed solutions

The workshops not only spotlighted current challenges faced across various markets, but, more importantly, they also underscored the collective determination to forge a more prosperous and sustainable future for affordable housing. Through targeted discussions, we identified actionable solutions — as laid out in this toolkit — to drive market progress. A notable sentiment that emerged from the workshops was the desire to continue making space for these conversations to better understand stakeholder perspectives and experience, collaborate on solutions, and share lessons learned from the field.

RMI is dedicated to continuing to support this work through our ongoing efforts at the state and local levels to advise on supportive policy, facilitate project delivery, and provide educational market resources. The dissemination of relevant resources is part of RMI’s contribution to the Affordable Housing Decarbonization Hub — a robust library of affordable housing decarbonization resources developed in collaboration with Housing Partnership Network and Enterprise Community Partners. Throughout these efforts, we continue to seek a thorough and inclusive understanding of the greatest market impacts through the lens of others to ensure our work is uplifting of or complementary to existing initiatives. Ongoing engagement and collaboration are essential to bridge these diverse insights and equip relevant industry stakeholders with the support, guidance, and connections to lead with affordable, sustainable housing solutions.

Participants

The attendees at each workshop varied depending on the local needs and identified workshop goals. In NYC, MSP, and ATL, the events each gathered approximately 60 affordable housing stakeholders, representing a range of backgrounds, expertise, and roles, to inform workshop plenary and small group discussions. In CA, local stakeholders identified a clear need to convene a smaller group of state agency representatives to collaborate and identify opportunities for greater coordination across state programs, goals, and affordable housing outcomes. In D.C., we hosted a larger group of nearly 120 attendees, including nearly 20 federal agency staff members. Although the specific make-up of stakeholders at each event varied, attendees generally included environmental justice advocates, tenant rights and housing justice experts, various government agency representatives, local developers, building owners, technical experts, and financial experts interested in supporting solutions to advance decarbonization strategies. Collectively, these diverse and dedicated groups of stakeholders came together with the common goals of fostering collaboration, sharing insights, and exploring innovative solutions to current industry challenges across the affordable housing market.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the Wells Fargo Foundation, whose generous philanthropic support and engagement enabled RMI to facilitate this series of workshops. We also want to extend our appreciation to the subject-matter experts and community stakeholders who served on these events' steering committees and all workshop participants, who were integral to shaping workshop objectives and outcomes.

This resource was last updated on January 15th and reflects the most current information available. However, due to the evolving nature of market conditions, resources, and funding sources, it may be subject to change.

Contacts

Ellie White, ewhite@rmi.org

Ella Muré, emure@rmi.org

Lucas Toffoli, ltoffoli@rmi.org

Disclaimers

Statements, opinions, and related materials on this webpage are synthesized from suggestions offered by workshop participants and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Wells Fargo Foundation or RMI. This document is presented for informational purposes only and is not intended to recommend any particular investment or inform investment decisions.

This resource was last updated on January 15th and reflects the most current information available. However, due to the evolving nature of market conditions, resources, and funding sources, it may be subject to change.

Copyrights and Citation

RMI values collaboration and aims to accelerate the energy transition through sharing knowledge and insights. We therefore allow interested parties to reference, share, and cite our work through the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

All images used are from iStock.com unless otherwise noted.