Finance and Incentives

Deep energy retrofits are critical to achieving climate goals while preserving affordable housing. This session examines the transformation of Whitney Young Manor, a 195-unit multifamily development in Yonkers, NY, as a replicable model for high-performance renovation. The project combines comprehensive envelope improvements with innovative mechanical systems, including a central heat pump plant with hydronic distribution, energy recovery ventilators (ERVs), and wastewater heat recovery.

Everyone knows sustainable design is good for people and the planet—like spinach, it’s good for us, but not everyone wants a bite. This interactive session shows how to make sustainability irresistible by connecting it to what clients really care about: budget, performance, and social impact. Through real-world stories and hands-on scenarios, you’ll learn practical ways to reframe sustainability as smart business and great design—no greenwashing, no lectures, just results.

In many affordable housing preservation projects, seemingly good electrification projects are deemed infeasible. We present real NYC projects where the decision was made not to electrify, and how the decisions were made. Then we turn to the audience: using your own assumptions and experience, convince us otherwise. Through live discussion, we explore why teams reach different conclusions and what it will take to move the right projects forward.

Can the fight against climate change also create a more resilient and emergency-ready campus? Stony Brook University’s decarbonization efforts prioritize resilience and engagement of a cross-functional team of campus stakeholders representing facilities, workforce development, capital projects, communications, and community relations. The new infrastructure will include a fuel cell microgrid integrated with networked geothermal, that can provide clean, reliable energy so that the university and its hospital have consistent delivery of heating, cooling, and electricity during an emergency.

This panel will highlight practical lessons and past experiences of designing energy efficiency and decarbonization programs and projects with communities in mind. We will focus on how involving communities, big or small, is essential to the execution of different sustainable initiatives, and argue that this method has the greatest potential for long-term benefits.

How do high performance building practitioners persuade clients to pursue deep reductions in operational and embodied carbon? Industry experts from architecture, energy consulting, and development share lessons on owner decision making, cost, risk, and defining an acceptable outcome for new construction and rehab projects. The discussion offers honest reflection on what persuasion methods succeed, when results are limited, and how some strategies fail. Presenters will also share lessons learned, and perspectives on what strategies work best with various stakeholders.

This session explores NYC’s first C-PACE financing for a co-op, highlighting how a mission-driven financing approach unlocked decarbonization for a traditionally hard-to-serve building type. Through a recent, real-world case study, presenters will share lessons learned navigating legal, financial, and governance barriers, and demonstrate how co-ops can access capital to meet Local Law 97 emissions goals and other mandates under the Climate Mobilization Act.