Green Initiatives
Jay Wilson
Green Initiatives
Climate United has been selected to receive nearly $7 Billion in funding from the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). The Climate United coalition, of which NeighborWorks Capital is a member, is led by Calvert Impact Capital, Community Preservation Corporation, and Self Help and is a collaboration of experienced, mission-driven lenders and investors dedicated to bringing accessible clean energy solutions to Justice40 communities across the country.
The GGRF presents a generational opportunity to mobilize financing and private capital to address the climate crisis, particularly in communities that have been historically left behind. Through our partnership with NeighborWorks America, its network of leading nonprofits, and the larger membership groups serving CDFIs, NeighborWorks Capital Green is uniquely equipped to facilitate the equitable distribution of GGRF capital to a diverse group of CDFIs serving communities in every state, the District of Colombia, Puerto Rico, and on tribal lands, and to implement plans to ensure leaders in every community have access to training and support to bring this resource to their neighborhoods.
As a member of the Climate United coalition, NeighborWorks Capital Green will:
Multifamily Lending
NeighborWorks Capital Green will provide a new source of loan capital for multi-family real estate development to fund the retrofit of existing properties to increase building energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and loans for the construction of new Net-Zero properties.
Drive Market Building Activities
NeighborWorks Capital Green will coordinate the training of the CDFI industry to engage in energy-related lending and engage, educate, and equip leaders in low-income, disadvantaged, rural, and Native communities across the country to build their knowledge of the GGRF opportunity.
Our Reach
Most developers in the affordable housing industry do not have significant experience with energy efficiency investment at scale and it is critical for NeighborWorks America and its national network of nonprofit member organizations to have access to this funding. NeighborWorks Capital Green will work collaboratively with NeighborWorks America to engage its national network to communicate the opportunity and expand engagement with communities in need regardless of whether a NeighborWorks member works in that community.
This partnership is critical to ensure GGRF funding reaches underinvested communities. Absent a substantial education and outreach effort, GGRF funding is likely to follow the course of many other previous investment efforts and many deserving underinvested communities will again be overlooked. Together, we are in a position to ensure this does not happen again.
Advisory Board
The NeighborWorks Capital Green Advisory Board is comprised of some of the most knowledgeable and influential leaders in the industry who are joining together to ensure that GGRF funding reaches low-income, disadvantaged, rural, and Native communities across the country. The Advisory Board will guide NeighborWorks Capital’s role as the CDFI multifamily channel market-building lead and green development lender by seeking to increase NeighborWorks Capital’s reach beyond its traditional customers and stakeholders, retain executive-level advice regarding CDFI and green lending, and engage industry leaders in its work. Members of the NeighborWorks Capital Green Advisory Board include:
Daniel
Cunningham
Owner/Principal, Development Preservation Consulting LLC Executive Director, Community Preservation Trust
Our Partnership
Climate United is a partnership of three non-profits—Calvert Impact, The Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), and Self-Help—that are complementary in their expertise and like-minded about the imperative to make sure that all Americans, particularly those bearing the greatest burden from the climate crisis, participate in and benefit from the movement to reduce carbon emissions. Between them, the organizations have more than 120 years of experience directly deploying more than $30 billion to address climate change or assist communities that are disproportionately affected by climate change. Multiple deployment and implementation partners will join the core partners to assist with managing and mobilizing the National Clean Investment Fund established by the Environmental Protection Agency as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
For more information, please visit www.weareclimateunited.org.
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Jay Wilson
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