ACEEE Publishes Several Energy Efficient Building Reports
Originally published by: ACEEE — August 24, 2020
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As we recently wrote on the ACEEE blog, the COVID-19 crisis has exposed the intertwined relationships among housing, energy, and health, and has underscored how disparate living conditions can adversely affect communities of color. The health inequities revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic remind us of the urgent need to rectify the underlying conditions that make certain communities particularly vulnerable to health harms, and to ensure that every person has a safe space to shelter.
Here's an update on some of the work that the ACEEE Health and Environment team has been doing to bridge the health, housing, and energy efficiency sectors and align their efforts towards an equitable and healthy future.
We recently released a suite of reports that examine the relationship between health and efficiency, and identify opportunities to measure and monetize impact, expand innovative health services and leverage funding. These are available for download at the links below:
- Protecting the Health of Vulnerable Populations with In-Home Energy Efficiency: A Survey of Methods for Demonstrating Health Outcomes describes strategies to measure and communicate health benefits achieved through energy efficient programs.
- Making Health Count: Monetizing the health Benefits of Services Delivered by Energy Efficiency shows that by targeting four common health risks — asthma, falls, and exposure to extreme heat or cold — existing weatherization programs could save almost $3 billion dollars in avoided health harms over a ten-year period. This study is among the first to quantify these potential savings and introduces a tool to customize and tailor calculations for specific programs at the state and local levels.
- Braiding Energy and Health Funding for In-Home Programs: Federal Funding Opportunities identifies 6 sources of health-related federal funding that represent $2 billion that could be used to provide weatherization and/or complementary services to households in need. By weaving together resources from the health and energy sectors, programs can access increased funding opportunities, expand services, and reach more households; such an integrated approach can yield environmental, economic, and health benefits, particularly for vulnerable communities.
These reports are first steps toward meaningfully bridging the health and energy sectors at the program level. To help share actionable knowledge with the on-the-ground practitioners who will turn these ideas into reality, we are also launching a new working group to support program implementers to incorporate health into energy saving programs. You can join the group by filling out a brief introductory survey here: www.bit.ly/aceeePDN.