States are increasingly setting and pursuing ambitious clean and renewable energy goals while also attempting to mitigate risk from and build resilience to natural disasters. Accordingly, they need new and innovative approaches to program finance and funding to address the cross-cutting themes of energy, infrastructure and disaster mitigation.
During an Innovation Classroom presented by the Institute for Building Technology & Safety (IBTS), leaders learned how states can leverage federal funding to develop and implement large-scale programs to achieve their vision for a sustainable and resilient future.
Christopher Fennell, chief development officer for IBTS, said the organization was founded in recognition of the gaps between government, regulatory issues and technical issues, particularly in the built environment. He focused on funding sources like the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant Mitigation program (CDBG-MIT), or the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program.
“This is what I’ve focused my career on — trying to understand how to move the needle in the built environment,” Fennell said.
He described transitions in building strategies, including green, sustainable, resilient and mitigation-focused efforts. What sets mitigation apart, he said, is its focus not just on actions today or in the future, but on “actions that can mitigate causes of events in the future.”
IBTS provides a range of services, but its core mission, Fennell said, is to serve as a neutral, non-biased, trusted advisor and to provide oversight and quality assurance. One piece of advice? Take advantage of new funding, including fund from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the American Rescue Plan Act. “A layer down, what is considered infrastructure? There’s $60 billion for equitable clean energy, not just clean energy, recognizing the gap between disadvantaged communities and access to clean energy. Energy efficiency and community block grants — over $500 million there. That’s the federal government saying, ‘At the state and local level, you know better than we do what your needs are; here’s a block grant.’ There’s $500 million for that, and $3 billion for weatherization. […] That’s really low hanging fruit for return on investment to increase efficiency.”