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.
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Harbor 3
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Learning Objectives:
- Define the parameters of the carbon emissions reductions actions that are being required in MA.
- Describe how those requirements translate into actions for reducing carbon (either all at once or over time) to comply with the regulations.
- Evaluate the different pathways available to achieve carbon neutrality and understand the factors that may result in preference for particular strategies.
- Start to implement a similar evaluation and planning process for their projects.
