Climate Finance Needs Assessments

Elevate and its partners in the Relay Network evaluated the readiness of 5 metropolitan areas – Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh – to take advantage of funding and financing for energy efficiency and clean energy investment.

Project Goals:

• Identify areas of current strengths and policy alignment
• Recommend particular areas of training needs and specific policy opportunities
• Build relationships to advance energy efficiency and decarbonization projects
• Identify a potential pipeline for short- and medium-term projects

Findings:

The project partners prepared a summary of findings and recommendations for each of the five metropolitan areas in presentation format, all linked below.

Cleveland, Ohio

Detroit, Michigan

Houston, Texas

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

While each metropolitan area had its own unique context, there were some key themes that crossed geographies. In each place, stakeholders saw great value in focusing in the affordable housing sector, and recognized that energy efficiency and clean energy improvements could reduce utility costs while making buildings greener and healthier. We also found, across places, that connecting community-based developers to opportunities was critical, and it requires explicit focus to ensure smaller and mission-driven developers were able to take advantage of climate financing opportunities.

This project was conducted in partnership with the Relay Network, a national network of energy efficiency implementers who promote knowledge sharing, facilitate collaborative partnerships, and encourage joint innovation. As an alliance of mission-based non-profit organizations, the Relay Network seeks to leverage each other’s expertise to extend our collective reach to the buildings, residents and communities that we serve. Participating organizations included Building Energy Exchange, Green Coast Enterprises, Institute for Market Transformation, New Ecology Inc., and Vermont Energy Investment Corporation.

This project also benefited from participation of community-based organizations in each metropolitan area, including ACTION Housing (Pittsburgh), Community Development Advocates of Detroit, Fifth Ward Community Revitalization Corporation (Houston), Northwest Side Community Development Corporation (Milwaukee), and Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy (Cleveland).

Funding for this project was generously provided by Invest in Our Future.

Connect with Us:

Elevate and its partners are now actively working to implement the recommendations in these documents. Please contact us at info@elevatenp.org if you are interested in collaborating to achieve this.