This report is a guide to all customer-facing financing products—products offered by a lender directly to a borrower—used to pay for energy efficiency. Intended for state and local governments that are deciding whether to start a new program, tune up and existing program, or create a Green Bank, it provides information on the full range of financing product options for target participants, the tradeoffs of various products, and potential advantages and disadvantages for different types of customers.

This publication summarizes lessons learned from Peer Exchange Calls about how energy efficiency programs and partners can leverage timing to engage homeowners.

The Better Buildings Neighborhood Program featured 41 competitively selected grantees that developed sustainable energy efficiency upgrade programs across the U.S. from 2010-14. This presentation covers what worked and what didn’t, and key success factors identified by an independent evaluation.

This Guide is designed to help state and local policymakers to take full advantage of new policy developments by providing them with a comprehensive set of tools to support launching or accelerating residential energy efficiency programs. The Guide focuses on four categories of policies that have proven particularly effective in providing a framework within which residential energy efficiency programs can thrive: incentives and financing, making the value of energy efficiency visible in the real estate market, data access and standardization, and supporting utility system procurement of energy efficiency.

This document summarizes top marketing and outreach takeaways shared by Better Buildings Residential Network members during spring 2015 Peer Exchange Calls.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on community-based outreach and organizing strategies to market home energy assessments and upgrades.

In this video interview segment, Yvonne Kraus of Conservation Services Group describes how the program aligned its goal of increasing energy efficiency with the community's goal to avoid building a new electrical substation.

In this video interview segment, Yvonne Kraus of Conservation Services Group describes how energy advisors were an important strategy for building trust with customers in the community.

Bill insert used by JEA to advertise their energy efficiency program.

Quick summaries of strategies various programs have used to improve the efficiency of delivering efficiency.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on new and updated revenue strategies.

Flier that summarizes energy efficiency financing offered by Xcel Energy's financing partners.

This report explores the approaches and research needs identified in the Building Retrofit Industry and Market (BRIM) Initiative through in-depth discussion with residential energy upgrade experts including a discussion of Marketing & Outreach and the program/contractor interface.

This peer exchange call summary focused on tracking and using data to support revenue streams.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on trends in contractor conversion rates.

This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on working with the real estate sector to promote and drive demand for energy efficiency.

RePower helped consumers access aggregated information about financing and rebates by compiling a customer-friendly guide to all utility and non-utility incentives in its service area.

This publication summarizes some of the incentives offered by Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.

In this video interview segment, Bruce Doeuck of JEA ShopSmart in Jacksonville, Florida, discusses the importance of building relationships with financial institutions.

Reviews and summarize energy efficiency financing models and strategies. Models are analyzed according to funding sources, program structures, limits to scale, repayment vehicles, and project risks. Strategies consider applicable building sectors, models, levels of establishment, growth potential, advantages, and disadvantages.

This video describes how RePower benefited from coordinating with contractors from the very beginning.

In this video interview segment, Bruce Doeuck of JEA ShopSmart in Jacksonville, Florida, discusses the importance of responding to the needs of contractors.

This practitioner-focused Toolkit for Residential Energy Efficiency Upgrade Programs was created by Green For All to assist new, established, and future energy efficiency programs launch and scale initiatives that can deliver the full promise of the green economy. It is intended as a practical resource that offers examples, tools, and templates that a program manager can deploy to implement a variety of aspects of their program including best practice briefs and summary documents, RFPs, contracts, and other program design and implementation templates that communities nationwide have used to create their own efficiency programs.

This report covers how to create high road standards and use the momentum of energy sector projects to create safe, well-paying, long-term careers for a diverse group of people. It includes case studies on Community Power Works in Seattle, Washington, and Clean Energy Works Oregon's (now Enhabit's) efforts to use community high road agreements.

This peer exchange call summary focused on how to receive and evaluate feedback from customers and contractors.

Descriptions of eight county-level and city-level energy efficiency programs in the Southwest.

This peer exchange call summary focused on grant funding investments, program design and revenue streams in the post-grant period.

In this video interview segment, Yvonne Kraus of Conservation Services Group describes how program and utility partnerships can co-benefit each other.

This report from Climate Solutions analyzes small- to medium-sized American cities that are using successful methods to further clean energy economic development. Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners that are featured in the report include Bainbridge Island and Bremerton, Washington; Boulder, Colorado; Bedford, New York; Madison, Wisconsin; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The report includes details on the how the featured cities funded their projects, found successful models to reach their goals, and to see which new projects are off to a promising start.

Presentation on the key programmatic elements of financing initiatives.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges and strategies for marketing commercial financial products and attracting financial institutions.

In this video interview segment, Will Ranes of RePower Kitsap discusses the importance of understanding your market, including being able to speak the language of utilities and other key players.

This presentation includes the brands, website addresses, and images for most of the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.

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 peer exchange call summary focused on a general overview and implementation plan of the PACE program.

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

Survey for consultants participating in Green Madison and Me2 programs about their experiences with the programs.

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 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 peer exchange call summary focused on what energy efficiency programs are doing to target low- and moderate-income households.

This peer exchange call summary focused on the different types of evaluation methods for residential and commercial programs.

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

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

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.

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 program administration for PACE financing programs.

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.