Finance the Future - Rocky Mountain Institute

Finance the Future aims to increase the availability of capital for home energy improvements, and promote transparency of home energy performance in the home purchase process.

What Is Finance the Future?

We are increasing the availability of innovative financing mechanisms, and incorporating home energy use into underwriting practices, especially at the point of sale, the industry can mitigate default risk and collateral risk, improve access to higher-quality building stock, and generate substantial savings for all homeowners of varying income levels.

Solar panels on the roof of a single family house.

Why It Matters

In spite of benefits of high performing homes, homeowners have been slow to invest in home energy upgrades. This is largely due to the lack of availability of capital for home energy improvements, and little transparency into home energy performance during the home purchase process. This means mortgage underwriters have not generally considered monthly energy costs or the value of energy improvements, and home appraisals have not reflected the value of energy improvements.

What We’re Doing

Finance the Future is focused on making home energy performance a factor in home buying decisions by convening technical experts and practitioners, generating thought leadership, and providing guidance to major market actors in order to increase the availability of capital for home energy improvements by scaling innovative financing mechanisms, improve equitable access to capital for low-income households (who, on average, spend 18% of their annual income on energy costs and are at greater financial risk when energy costs rise) by detailing specific recommendations to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Duty to Serve Ruling, and promoting transparency of home energy performance during the mortgage underwriting process and advising mortgage agencies.

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What We’ve Accomplished

With the support of partners, we have successfully influenced the Duty to Serve ruling and are now acting as a strategic advisor to a large mortgage institution which seeks a path forward to institute requirements for energy performance data in the underwriting process. We're also working to scale traditional and nontraditional financing mechanisms for home energy upgrades such as PACE, and presenting opportunities to streamline consistent consumer protection standards.