Coalition Launches Decarbonization Program in Major US Cities, Counties

A national coalition of UtilityAPI, Allectrify, and Sustainable Real Estate Solutions (SRS) and four nonprofit green banks, launched the Building Decarbonization In-A-Box (BDAB) program to rapidly scale up clean-energy tech across millions of small commercial and multifamily buildings.

To implement the BDAB, participating cities and counties will harness building permits, energy benchmarking and customer utility data to identify buildings that can benefit from the program and provide building owners with no-cost technical and financial assistance via proven software solutions from SRS, UtilityAPI, and Allectrify.

Six cities – Atlanta, Georgia; Fort Collins, Colorado; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Reno, Nevada; and San Antonio, Texas – and three counties – Los Angeles County, California; St. Louis County, Missouri; and Montgomery County, Maryland – will be the first to take advantage of the local government-driven BDAB program.

Buildings account for 40% of greenhouse-gas emissions globally and as much as 70% of the total emissions in cities. Existing decarbonization programs tend to overlook small commercial and multifamily buildings. These buildings are less than 50,000 square feet in size, account for 94% of U.S. commercial building stock, consume 44% of the overall energy used in buildings, and are often located in underserved communities.