Dive Brief:
- Boston launched a grant program on Monday to provide affordable housing owners with technical assistance to reduce buildings’ energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
- The grants — funded through federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars — provide successful applicants with up to $10,000 each for comprehensive energy assessments. Twenty applicants representing over 2,000 units have already been awarded grants.
- The program will also help the city gain insight into best practices for making affordable housing more energy efficient and climate-friendly, according to a press release.
Dive Insight:
The grant is part of a larger $10 million program announced by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu in March, which aims to make the city’s existing affordable housing greener. It is also a piece of Wu’s Green New Deal, a climate plan being embedded throughout initiatives citywide.
In July, Wu signed an executive order banning fossil fuel use in city-owned buildings that are being constructed or renovated. Large buildings in Boston are also required to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, per the city’s Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance.
"We firmly believe that the residents of affordable housing in Boston should be the first to experience the transformative benefits of the Green New Deal,” Boston Green New Deal Director Oliver Sellers-Garcia said in a statement. “This means providing them with cleaner and more comfortable buildings year-round.”
Boston is eyeing additional federal climate funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act, and planning to leverage its “early successes with ARPA funds,” Sellers-Garcia said.
By completing comprehensive energy assessments through the recently announced grant program, affordable housing building owners will be well-positioned to receive additional competitive funding for green energy retrofits, the city said in a press release. The city stated that assessments can be scoped and completed, with funds disbursed, within three to six months of the grant award.
When the assessments are complete, the city plans to allocate more funds for implementing green energy retrofitting measures, including solar panel installation and energy-efficient lighting and appliances.
