Housing policies and energy efficiency spillovers in low and moderate income communities

Datos Bibliográficos

ID13110293
AutoresOmar Isaac Asensio (0000-0003-2143-5022, Georgia Institute of Technology, autor de correspondencia), Olga Churkina (0000-0002-0278-3294, Georgia Institute of Technology), Becky D Rafter (0000-0002-6592-9959, Georgia Institute of Technology), Kira E O’Hare (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Año2024
Volumen7
Número5
Páginas590-601
Fecha de publicación2024-03-18
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaNature Sustainability (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2398-9629 • E-ISSN: 2398-9629
EditorialNature Portfolio (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1038/s41893-024-01314-w
OpenAlexW4392925956
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas64

Housing policies address the human dimensions of increasing urban density, but their energy and sustainability implications are hard to measure due to challenges with siloed civic data. This is especially critical when evaluating policies targeting low- and moderate-income (LMI) households. For example, a major challenge to achieving national energy efficiency goals has been participation by LMI households. Standalone energy efficiency policies, such as information-based programmes and weatherization assistance, tend to attract affluent, informed households or suffer from low participation rates. In this Article, we provide evidence that federal housing policies, specifically community development block grants, accelerate energy efficiency participation from LMI households, including renters and multifamily residents. We conduct record linkage on 5.9M observations of housing programme participation and utility consumption to quantify the hidden benefits of locally administered housing block grants in a typical entitlement community in the US Southeast. We provide long-run evidence across 16,680 properties that housing policies generate 5–11% energy savings as spillover benefits to economically burdened households not conventionally targeted for energy efficiency participation

Business · Demographic economics · Economics · Efficient energy use · Energy (signal processing · Environmental economics · Low income · Natural resource economics · Public economics · Building Energy and Comfort Optimization · Engineering · Housing Market and Economics · Sustainable Building Design and Assessment