Low-income households struggle to afford a home in TN. Carbon credits can help.
Last winter, cold snaps across the U.S., including in Tennessee, put thousands of people at risk. Now, as summer approaches, little will change. Because of rising home energy bills, many households are forced to choose between staying warm in the winter and cool in the summer—or paying for rent, food and life-saving medications.
Carbon credits, a market tool used to help companies reduce their climate impact, could help low-income Tennesseans afford proper home heating and cooling. This would occur by helping pay for energy efficiency upgrades that will significantly reduce household utility bills. (Read more on the definition of carbon credits below.)
The stakes are high. 13 million U.S. households face energy cost burdens (ECBs) so high that they forego essential heating and cooling. Low income households face some of the highest ECBs in the country, spending 8.1% of their income on energy costs, compared to 2.3% for non-low-income households.
Additionally, many of these households are renters who lack the authority to fix poorly insulated homes or replace energy-thirsty appliances.
Carbon credits are generated by projects that reduce carbon emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere – projects like rooftop solar panels and home weatherization. Such emission reductions are measured, bought and sold on markets around the world.
By participating in carbon credit projects based on energy efficiency, or distributed energy resources, like electric heat pumps, Tennesseans could take part in a global voluntary carbon market valued at $2.97 billion in 2023, and projected to reach $24.0 billion by 2030.
Doing so can in turn help keep Tennessee homes at healthy, seasonally appropriate temperatures while also lowering household utility bills.
Companies looking to reduce their environmental footprints can partner with nonprofits working in housing, energy, and health-equity.
Nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity of Greater Memphis, and Rebuilding Together Nashville, for example, can work with local contractors like Energy Electives to implement energy efficiency upgrades in low-income homes.
Carbon credit verifiers like Watt Carbon – the leading provider of measurement and tracking for carbon credits generated by distributed energy resources – will round off the partnership by underwriting verified and transparent transactions in environmental credits.
When companies purchase the carbon credits generated by energy efficiency, upgrades that were prohibitively expensive – like purchasing a heat pump or insulating an attic – become attainable for low-income owners and renters.
Households can suddenly afford the upgrades because companies are paying the upfront costs of making these upgrades by purchasing the carbon reductions.
This is a win-win because people can access funding that helps protect them from extreme heat and cold by making home heating or cooling more affordable; as the burden of energy costs lessens, people can afford to take better care of their health and save, all while air quality and climate change benefit from lower emissions.
The corporate money spent on purchasing the upgrades is the new source of funding for low-income residents. This funding pays for energy efficiency upgrades and the upgrades, in turn, reduce the energy (and energy cost) of keeping a home at seasonally appropriate temperatures.
The companies investing in carbon credits generated through energy efficiency upgrades are, in turn, reducing their climate impact by improving public health and climate resilience in the region, and preferably in the communities where they locate.
At the Climate, Health and Energy Equity Lab at Vanderbilt University, we design economic and health-equity interventions with environmental co-benefits, especially for marginalized communities.
Our Nashville study found that using carbon credit income to lower heating bills by improving energy efficiency is a viable option. We are now piloting this practice with our community partner Westwood Baptist Church, who runs a Housing Ministry providing lower-income households with below-market rentals in North Nashville.
Taking this study from a pilot to a statewide practice could help Tennesseans stay warm and healthy without breaking the bank.
Carol Ziegler, FNP-C, DNP and Zdravka Tzankova, Ph.D., are professors and co-founders of the Climate, Health and Energy Equity Lab, Vanderbilt University.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Carbon credits make housing accessible to low-income people | Opinion
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