Planning for Carbon Neutrality: Preparing Affordable Housing for an Equitable Transition
While Massachusetts and many communities have made commitments to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, Boston and Cambridge specifically are on the leading edge of implementing requirements around existing building emission reductions. Emissions tracking has started to move building owners toward benchmarking their carbon impact and developing long-term plans for compliance, with an eye toward minimizing costs. We will review a new “Zero Over Time” evaluation and planning process we have recently implemented for two affordable housing developments: an 35-unit senior housing building in Newton and a scattered site development in Boston with 15 buildings from 6-50 units. We will discuss how we have adapted the standard energy auditing process and integrated it with each development’s unique physical and financial circumstances.