Seeking a Just Transition to a Decarbonized Built Environment

We know that decarbonizing existing buildings is crucial to meaningfully reduce the carbon footprint of the building sector, but retrofitting older building stock, especially multifamily housing, is a formidable challenge. A new initiative, Community Climate Shift, hopes to demonstrate that it can be done rapidly—and equitably.

Just 2% of buildings receive a climate- or energy-related upgrade per year in the U.S., according to a 2022 article by Lotte Schlegel, executive director of the Institute for Market Transformation. This is not enough to meet our country’s goal to halve economy-wide emissions by 2030. A suite of federal initiatives and funding aims to address this by spurring state and local governments to decarbonize their existing building stock in a way that ensures frontline communities benefit from the transition.