Middle Class Task Force on Environmental Quality: Recovery Through Retrofit RepoThree barriers to energy efficiency retrofits are identified in the Recovery Through Retrofit Report, (full pdf of report here) unveiled today by Vice President Biden and the Middle Class Task Force. These barriers are important to address promptly as the operation of existing buildings uses up seventy-six percent (76%) of all power plant-generated electricity. Insuring that all new buildings comply with green building standards is important, but retrofits have to be a central consideration in any efficiency approach.  

The administration's response to those three barriers follows:  

First, to give consumers the information they need, the federal government will develop a standardized measure of home energy performance that is applicable to every home as well as a home performance label to signal that a home is energy efficient – like ENERGY STAR® does for appliances.
 
Second, we will make it easier for homeowners to pay for home retrofits by promoting accessible and affordable financing options.
 
Third, we will establish nationally recognized standards for worker training and certification so when you decide to invest in a home retrofit, you can rest assured that the work will be done right.

Each of these goals is worthy in its own right, and like many in this industry, we have dedicated considerable ink to the slew of proposals that have been put forth over the past year to address them. What strikes us as especially impressive about the report, however, is its recognition of the retrofit financing challenge. We've written about this, but energy retrofits suffer because (1) they aren't yet recognized to be home value-builders; (2) many people in this economy don't want to add to their mortgage burden; and (3) not many of us have a 20-30 year time horizon on the homes we currently occupy. For these reasons, it is particularly good to see that the administration recognizes the need to move retrofits off the mortgage.

Several financing strategies have captured our attention, all similar in structure to the City of Berkeley, CA's solar financing program via the property tax. Architecture 2030's 14x Stimulus plan, unveiled by architect Edward Mazria earlier this summer, partners municipalities with owners of existing buildings to apply for a loan. The municipality helps the homeowner secure lower interest rates (by paying the bank percentage points up front) and the homeowner agrees in exchange to undertake certain energy efficiency improvements.  The deeper the energy retrofit, the lower the rates.

There are a host of creative ways to approach financing, and those plans that take into consideration both the urgency of the need to generate energy efficiency retrofits and the realities of home ownership in this economy will successfully ignite the process the White House wants to set in motion.

As Domestic Policy Advisor Terrell McSweeny writes in the White House blog post, Going Green - And Saving You Money, "With almost 130 million homes in the United States, there’s plenty of work to be done." In our experience, home owners are ready to get to work. We've just got to give them the means and the tools.