This video shows how Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners are training and expanding their local contractor workforce and supporting professional jobs in communities across the country.

This publication outlines the various benefits of supporting investments in energy efficiency in multifamily affordable housing. Multifamily home energy retrofits ensure the long-term viability of existing affordable housing, support job creation with broad economic impacts, unlock a range of benefits for building residents, and can lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

This whitepaper showcases how local governments and organizations promote energy efficiency through policies and program partnerships. Presents eight case studies from communities across the country, including two Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners (Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) and Energy Impact Illinois).

This is the first study to provide statistical evidence that, holding other factors constant, a green label on a single-family home in California provides a market premium compared to a comparable home without the label. The research also indicates that the price premium is influenced by local climate and environmental ideology. To reach these conclusions, researchers conducted an economic analysis of 1.6 million homes sold in California between 2007 and 2012, controlling for other variables known to influence home prices in order to isolate the added value of green home labels.

This on-demand webinar discusses what residential customers in Wisconsin, the Midwest, and the nation have to say about energy topics.  Learn about the Energy Center of Wisconsin's (now Seventhwave's) research on consumer perceptions and actions concerning their energy use at home based on the 2011 Midwest Energy Survey.

This paper explores the drivers of energy use behaviors and the behavior‐based programs adopted by utilities charged with reducing the energy consumption of their residential and small commercial customers. It also presents researchable recommendations on how utilities can improve the effectiveness of behavior‐based energy programs.

This paper establishes the size of the potential retrofit market in the United States, and examines the emergence of new financing models that offer the promise of overcoming historical barriers to energy efficiency.

This article and recruiting presentation highlights reasons why it makes sense for an HVAC contractor to move into home performance, and provides program staff with key touch points to consider in considering potential contractor partners.

This webcast describes how energy efficiency programs can use AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps Teams to help their missions.

This report provides policymakers with principles and recommendations to understand and manage concerns about bill and rate impacts resulting from requiring utilities to provide efficiency programs.

This research report and slides provide a detailed segmentation of the building energy upgrade market and summarize market research on each segment. Market segments include single-family homes, multi-family homes, and several types of commercial and institutional buildings.

Example business plan to serve as an illustration of a functional and realistic business plan.

This U.S. Environmental Protection Agency resource is intended to help state and local governments design finance programs for their jurisdiction. It describes financing program options, key components of these programs, and factors to consider as they make decisions about getting started or updating their programs.

This webinar presented the story of the successful stakeholder process in Arkansas which led to the state's 2007 "Quick Start" utility-administered energy efficiency programs, the expansion of Quick Start programs to comprehensive programs in 2009, and the adoption in 2010 of increasing annual energy efficiency goals for 2011-2013. General principles of a successful collaborative process by utilities, utility regulators, customers and customer groups, state agencies, energy efficiency and consumer advocates, and others was discussed.

This webcast highlights opportunities for community development finance institutions to partner with energy efficiency programs.

This document provides an overview of how state policymakers, utilities, and regulators can overcome barriers to deploying customer energy information and feedback strategies.

This report provides state and local policymakers with information on successful approaches to the design and implementation of residential efficiency programs for households ineligible for low-income programs.

Describes program guidelines for EmPower Louisiana's Home Energy Rebate Option (HERO)-Existing Homes Program. Provides guidance to participants on how the EmPower Louisiana HERO Program will be implemented, and provides details on all aspects of the application and reporting process.

This report examines the different types of financiers and their specific strengths, weaknesses, and areas of focus. Specifically, the paper addresses the different types of financing partnerships in the marketplace and offers a guide to their individual interests, risk tolerances, and place in the financial services industry.

This report describes different approaches to energy efficiency finance taken by utilities.

Local governments can promote energy efficiency in their jurisdictions by developing and implementing strategies that improve the efficiency of municipal facilities and operations and/or encourage energy efficiency improvements in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. The energy efficiency guides in this series describe the process of developing and implementing strategies, using real-world examples, for improving energy efficiency in local government operations (see the guides on local government operations, K-12 schools, energy-efficient product procurement, combined heat and power, and water and wastewater facilities), as well as in the community.

This webcast provides guidance about the financial stakeholder engagement process and offers lessons from the field.

Fayette County, Pennsylvania completed a county-wide housing market analysis in 2005. The Fayette County Better Buildings program used information contained in the analysis to help inform its program design. For example, the program drew on information about the county's "patch" communities, which are towns constructed in the early 1900s by coal companies to house workers--to ensure that the program would address the unique conditions within these communities.

This webcast discusses financing program RFPs and contract terms and conditions.

This webcast shares useful and effective strategies for getting local leaders to support local government's energy efficiency goals.

This strategic plan describes the goals, objectives, market, and business model for the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance's energy efficiency program and service offerings.

These protocols provide recommended minimum specifications and best practices for protection of occupant health associated with home energy upgrades.

This webcast explores how faith-based organizations and their partners have used energy efficiency as an organizing motivator to upgrade the institutional building and then members' homes.

This study provides statistically significant analysis that ENERGY STAR qualified new homes sell faster (i.e., fewer days on the market) and for higher prices (i.e., sell for higher prices, or sell for a greater percentage of the listing price, or have a higher price per square foot) than comparable nonqualified homes, providing valuable evidence that there is a market advantage for ENERGY STAR qualified homes.

This report identifies issues associated with developing a national evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V) standard for end-use, non-transportation, energy efficiency activities.

This publication outlines capital leveraging models and examples from across the country in which public funds were used to influence energy loan program capital.

This report shares strategies for marketing local energy efficiency programs, particularly through focused messaging, leveraging partnerships, and social media.

This report provides an overview of residential customer information and behavior efficiency programs, and identifies key challenges to and solutions for increasing the penetration of these programs nationwide.

This webcast served as a roundtable for communities to describe successful partnerships between local governments and utilities that enabled the local governments to implement new clean energy programs or enhance existing ones.

This webcast focused on advanced topics for local government-utility partnerships, with presentations from local governments and their partnering utilities that have well-developed, multi-year relationships and programs.

Example of a program design flowchart showing key steps and relationships for the energy efficiency program in Eagle County, Colorado.

Example of an implementation plan developed by EnergySmart Colorado at the beginning of the implementation of its Better Buildings Neighborhood Program.

Boulder, Colorado's EnergySmart program produced a detailed implementation plan with activities, deliverables, and timelines by phase and task.

This document details the procedures for identifying, documenting, and responding to performance problems associated with contractors in the RePower Program in Washington. It includes example forms and a draft letter to contractors.

This report summarizes research assessing national and regional residential behavior-based energy efficiency (BBEE) programs and activities to identify best practices. The report emphasizes that a basic foundation for behavior change is providing energy consumers with feedback on their energy consumption, with customer engagement strategies and tactics employed to get customers to take action and drive greater levels of energy savings.

This publication offers a roadmap to help policymakers and practitioners design and implement a comprehensive residential retrofit strategy. It presents eight principles for success based on two decades of international experience, designed to achieve the level of energy savings that will be needed to address the challenge of climate change.

The Residential Retrofit Program Design Guide focuses on the key elements and design characteristics of building and maintaining a successful residential energy upgrade program. The material is presented as a guide for program design and planning from start to finish, laid out in chronological order of program development.

This report lays out a national vision for overcoming many of the barriers to comprehensive home energy improvements. The authors review a range of energy efficiency policies and programs, then analyze three funding and policy scenarios to gauge their long-term impacts on the market for home energy upgrades.

This report presents the results of a scoping study to assess the need for national databases that can support best practices in energy efficiency program evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V).

Example of an implementation plan developed by Seattle's Community Power Works at the beginning of the implementation of its Better Buildings Neighborhood Program.

This report helps policymakers understand how electric and natural gas utilities can achieve greater efficiency by establishing numeric energy savings targets and goals for energy efficiency programs.

Outlines five public-private financing mechanism options for energy efficiency upgrades programs, including on-bill financing, PACE financing, and loan loss reserve funds.

This report analyzes the energy efficiency opportunity presented to the greater Cincinnati region. Analysis of the region and the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) programs shows potential energy cost savings, including positive cash flow from energy cost savings that consistently exceed loan payments, for both residential and nonprofit participants. Investment in energy efficiency could make counties more competitive, create jobs, reduce pollution, and help homeowners and nonprofits make cross-cutting building improvements.

This paper describes the stakes and stakeholders involved in greening the MLS systems, analyzes the challenges involved, and summarizes what the green building stakeholder community can learn from a collaborative approach to greening MLS systems. This discussion concludes with a proposed framework for replicating collaborative stakeholder approaches, and suggests we are close to a breakthrough where states can now truly draw from the precedents to implement changes with speed and to scale.

This report describes how utility planning processes that allow demand-side resources to compete with supply-side resources can promote cost-effective energy efficiency.

This report presents results, recommendations, and case studies of energy efficiency financing programs.

This report identifies and discusses factors that should be considered in evaluating model choices for administering and implementing ratepayer funded energy efficiency programs.

This webcast reports on the energy efficiency services sector workforce size, expectations for growth, and training needs and features a case studies from Efficiency Vermont and Efficiency Maine.

A project planning timetable template from Austin Energy that reflects all program planning activities, including marketing.

This paper describes a wide variety of behavior change insights potentially applicable to the energy efficiency program context, provides examples of efficiency programs that have applied these insights, and explores some untapped opportunities to achieve energy savings through behavior change.

This paper, which is based on detailed case studies of nine existing state and local programs, presents recommendations for energy upgrade programs to facilitate industry growth and support contractor business models.

Flowcharts showing the key program elements (financing; workforce development; marketing and outreach; and data, evaluation; and reporting).

A marketing and communications plan from Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) outlines the program's marketing vision and objectives, as well as the strategies the program planned to undertake to meet these goals.

This agreement outlines the goals, contractor standards, hiring standards, training program standards, and procedures for contractor participation in Seattle's Community Power Works program. As a "high-road" agreement, the employment and contracting standards are designed to ensure broad access to economic opportunities for all types of businesses and workers, support training on sustainable career paths, and ensure high-quality work.

This is a community workforce agreement between the City of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation.

This report summarizes existing research and discusses current practices, opportunities, and barriers to coordinating energy efficiency and demand response programs.

This webcast discusses secondary markets as a means for private investors to participate in and fund energy efficiency loan programs.

This report summarizes the approaches used by energy efficiency program administrators when assessing the range of financial and other incentives to be used in energy efficiency programs.

This guide provides an assessment of various approaches to Marketing & Outreach for home energy efficiency improvements.

This webinar offers an introduction to EM&V basics, including data collection, tracking tools, M&V approaches, and reporting energy savings.

This report presents best practices for operating successful portfolio-level efficiency programs, including assessing efficiency potential, cost-effectiveness screening, and developing a portfolio of approaches.

This guide provides background on the home improvement market in the U.S. and Canada and end users and systems in existing homes, as well as a description of energy efficiency program approaches and strategies.

This webcast discussed the broad spectrum of needs financing mechanisms must address within integrated energy efficiency programs.

Table showing challenges, needs, strategies, and resources related to financing.

A report examining workforce certifications, skills benchmarks, and credentialing efforts in renewable energy and energy efficiency programs nationwide and offering recommendations.

This webcast highlights lessons learned from programs that have used loan loss reserve funds.

This webcast highlights programs that actively engage the contractor community in program design and implementation. Several contractors share their views on best practices for Marketing & Outreach.

This report shares the results of focus groups that were convened by the U.S. Department of Energy to identify what motivates people to undertake home energy improvements.

Two visual flow charts, one that illustrates the process starting with customer interest to final incentive payment, and another that illustrates the program's quality assurance process.

This webcast presents Pennsylvania's Keystone HELP program as a case study for successful public/private partnerships for consumer energy efficiency financing.

This is an example of an RFP for workforce development and other program elements. The RFP covers recruitment, outreach and marketing oriented to homeowners and workers, and service delivery of energy assessments and upgrades.

This report provides an overview of evaluation, measurement, and verification approaches used to estimate the load impacts and effectiveness of energy efficiency programs.

A sample request for proposals from Bainbridge Island, Washington, related to establishing a revolving loan fund and loan loss reserve.

A sample competitive procurement procedure to award loan loss reserve funds to a financial institution partner.

A sample request for proposals from Boulder County, Colorado, to develop an energy efficiency and renewable energy rebate program.

This article discusses valuing high performance houses in the appraisal process.

This guide provides energy efficiency program design guidance for local and regional programs. It focuses on cost-saving energy efficiency strategies, creation of high quality jobs, and services for the low-income sector.

The report presents an analysis of the market performance of third-party certified sustainable residential properties in the Portland and Seattle metropolitan areas. In each location, a sample of third-party certified homes was selected and comparable homes were found. The author documents that certified homes in the Seattle metro area sold at a price premium of 9.6% when compared to noncertified counterparts.

This report highlights road-tested strategies, resources, and tools states can use to adopt cost-effective energy efficiency and clean energy programs for their buildings, facilities, and operations.

This report summarizes the issues and approaches involved in motivating customers to reduce the total energy they consume through energy prices and rate design.

This report considers consumers' perspectives on policy and regulatory issues associated with the administration of energy efficiency investments funded by ratepayers of electric and natural gas utilities.

This report summarizes the scale and economic value of energy efficiency for reducing carbon emissions and discusses barriers to achieving the potential for cost-effective energy efficiency.

Webcast with information on financing structure design for four energy efficiency upgrade programs, including methods used to conduct market evaluations.

Report that identifies and evaluates the sufficiency of available financing options to help low-income populations, particularly communities that have been historically overburdened by air pollution (i.e., "environmental justice communities"), invest in resource-saving measures, such as energy efficiency and water conservation.

This webcast discussed legal issues for PACE financing programs.

This guide helps state and local authorities and energy efficiency program administrators choose successful programs in response to energy efficiency program funding opportunities through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It provides information and lessons learned about ten different types of programs--such as Home Performance with ENERGY STAR--across the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors.

This webcast featured four presentations providing examples and best practices for revolving loan funds.

This report provides information for states intending to set up a new revolving loan fund for state energy programs.

This webcast provides an introduction to revolving loans funds, highlighting basics and best practices.

A sample request for proposals from Washington state to develop an energy efficiency credit enhancement grant program.

This guide helps states and localities develop voluntary or mandatory programs that go well beyond minimum code requirements for new buildings. It addresses energy efficiency materials and resource conservation, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and site development and land use.

This report discusses the five standard tests used to assess the cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency, how states use the tests, and how the tests can determine the cost-effectiveness of efficiency measures.

This report describes the effects of utility spending on efficiency programs, how those effects could constitute barriers to investment in energy efficiency, and how policy mechanisms can reduce these barriers.

This marketing strategy includes the goals and objectives the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Energy Alliance set out to meet.

This report provides guidance on determining the efficiency potential in a utility footprint, state, or region; evaluating efficiency as a supply-side resource; and developing detailed efficiency program plans.