This report examines how budget-constrained households balance spending on air conditioning versus other essentials like food and clothing during hot weather. Using banking data from Houston, Los Angeles, and Chicago, it finds that low-income households often cope with high electricity bills by reducing air conditioning use and enduring more heat. The findings aim to help policymakers identify strategies to better support these households and improve their welfare amid rising temperatures.

Electrifying heating systems with air-to-air heat pumps is crucial for achieving global greenhouse gas targets. This report uses simulations of 550,000 U.S. households to evaluate the costs and benefits of various heat pump performance levels and insulation upgrades. The analysis highlights the potential for significant emissions reductions and identifies the importance of efficiency and insulation in optimizing cost-effectiveness. It also suggests that supportive incentives and policies may be necessary to address affordability challenges and promote widespread adoption.

Compiling national outdoor air pollution data from across the government and other expert sources, this report shows the extent of the harm caused to people and the environment from fossil fuel burning equipment in homes and buildings, the disproportionate impact this pollution has on environmental justice communities and other vulnerable demographic groups, and how the use of methane gas in buildings is connected to the broader system of methane gas extraction and distribution.

WE ACT's Out of Gas, In with Justice pilot studied the feasibility and benefits of electrification in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) by comparing improvements to air quality and participant satisfaction between 10 apartments with induction stoves and 10 with their existing gas stoves. It is the first study of its kind to focus on the effects of residential cooking electrification with tenants in-place in an urban public housing setting with low-income residents and residents of color. This pilot offers lessons for policymakers, public housing agencies, and affordable housing providers on cooking electrification and its impact on indoor air quality, social acceptance of electrification measures, and infrastructure challenges for existing housing in environmental justice communities.

Over half of California’s 3.2 million multifamily units were constructed before energy efficiency standards, resulting in poor performance and high greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, affordable multifamily housing must improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and lower tenant utility bills while enhancing quality of life. Yet building owners face many challenges to improving the performance of their buildings. This report covers the role certain types of energy service agreements, combined with federal incentives, can play in scaling affordable multifamily retrofits.

Wisconsin's Clean Energy Plan is a pathway for decarbonization that prioritizes environmental justice, a diverse workforce, and technology innovation.

Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Tribal Solar Deployment is a project that seeks to address policy challenges or barriers that affect solar projects differently or disproportionately because they are located on Tribal land. This three-part guidebook presents significant regulatory challenges and associated solutions, case studies of Tribal solar deployment projects, and briefs highlighting issues that are uniquely or specifically relevant to solar deployment on Tribal land.

This report shares opportunities and challenges for financing and executing building decarbonization retrofits for unsubsidized multifamily housing in the Bay Area that have been recently acquired and rehabilitated by nonprofit affordable housing developers or could be acquired and rehabilitated in the near future.

This paper explores strategies to enhance solar energy access for renters in subsidized affordable housing. The paper identifies barriers to solar participation, such as upfront costs for building owners and split incentives between owners and renters. It reviews existing community solar programs and provides recommendations to improve access.

This report develops a framework for states to use to advance building decarbonization. It also includes case studies from different regions. Decarbonization is essential but requires carefully thought out policies and coordination among multiple stakeholders. States play a unique role in this, ranging from establishing energy codes, regulating emissions, and engaging with energy providers.