Climate group expanding to Richmond with focus on businesses’ energy efficiency

Employees with Quick AC Quote install new high efficiency heat pumps at Linden Green Apartments in Christiansburg, Virginia in May. ( Photo courtesy of Bradley Strahm / Community Housing Partners)

It’s a phrase that has been called less sexy than other energy conservation efforts to combat climate change, but a local group is focused on making energy efficiency available to a narrow sector.

Community Climate Collaborative, also known as C3, is expanding from Charlottesville to Richmond after working the past few years to help businesses reach carbon neutral emission goals, a more modest approach to ultimately reaching zero-carbon goals. 

The group is working to make the concept of energy efficiency appealing to the business community, currently responsible for about 28% of the state’s average annual average emissions between 2016 and 2020 of 84 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions scientists say contribute to climate change.

“We’re just getting started,” said Susan Kruse, executive director. “If we can collect [businesses’] energy data and meet with them on a regular basis, we can help people stay on track.”

Energy efficiency is the process of sealing up buildings, upgrading lights or replacing appliances using fossil fuels with modern ones in order to cut down on the amount of energy needed. 

The changes C3 seeks are in line with the goals of the cities of Charlottesville and Richmond, which have plans to reduce emissions by mid-century. 

”We need to advocate for more funding opportunities to really move the needle further,” said Tray Biasiolli, a climate program specialist with the city of Charlottesville. “I think there’s wide recognition it’s a tough nut to crack.”

Enter the Virginia C-PACE program, designed to spur economic development with the goal of making buildings more energy efficient. It’s getting off the ground with a senior living facility in Prince William County and a historic hotel in Petersburg by taking advantage of a unique lending mechanism.

“It’s a way that does not require utility incentives that can come and go [or] can run out if it’s oversubscribed. It’s not a requirement by the state government depending on who’s in the office, what they want to do,” said Abby Johnson, executive director of the Virginia PACE Authority. “It’s something that never goes away.”

From C’ville to RVA

Both the cities of Charlottesville and Richmond outlined energy efficiency goals in plans they’ve crafted. 

In 2019, Charlottesville set its sights on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and to be carbon neutral by 2050. At that time the city had just over 300,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in total, with 30% coming from the commercial sector, according to their Climate Action Plan. 

The city identified increasing energy efficiency and onsite renewable energy use in existing buildings as one strategy to reduce emissions. Charlottesville has some mechanisms in place to help the business community reduce their carbon footprint, such as providing a grant program to help businesses install electric vehicle charging stations available to employees and the public.

But where C3 came into play was making some of the smaller, fine-tune adjustments to help businesses realize savings on their utility bills by using less energy through efforts like installing smart thermostats to turn down temperatures in the evening. The organization has also provided grants up to $2,000 for improvements.

“The green banks and green financing are really going to help,” said Cole Jennings, director of corporate sustainability, at a recent panel event held in Richmond.

Susan Kruse, executive director of Climate Community Collaborative, speaks before a panel event at Quirk Hotel in Richmond April 18. (Charlie Paullin/Virginia Mercury)

In Richmond, the city has a near-identical plan to Charlottesville’s, with a goal of reducing emissions by 45% by 2030 and net-zero by 2050. Some 40% of the city’s 2.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide comes from the commercial/industrial sector.

Recognizing the need to address climate change, the city adopted the plan in 2022 with an objective to “maximize energy efficiency, performance and resilience in all existing buildings.”

The impacts of climate change in the city are “already here,” said another panelist, Michael Smart, sustainability engagement coordinator in Richmond’s office of sustainability, while referencing heat island studies. 

C3 board chair Grey McLean and member Emily Francis said in an interview with the Mercury after the panel there are opportunities for businesses to improve their energy efficiency, such as audits Jennings provides that determine where leaks or energy efficient gains can be made within a building.

“A lot of times the businesses just need a plan,” said McLean, “They don’t know what they don’t know. What you can measure, you can manage.”

Kelli Lemon, co-founder of the Richmond Black Restaurant Experience, owner of Urban Hang Suite and a member of the panel, recognized how energy-conscious building upgrades, such as improved lighting, can have an impact on whether customers return to a restaurant or leave a bad review on the internet.

“The younger generation is asking about climate, they are talking about climate, where my generation [couldn’t] care less,” Lemon said. “It’s the small things but they do add up to maybe you are actually losing customers.” 

C-PACE financing

Included in the Charlottesville climate plan is a goal of tapping into Virginia’s C-PACE program, as Petersburg has done, making it one of the first areas of the state to take advantage of the funding opportunity for retrofitting buildings or developing new ones.

The program is a way to provide a long-term loan through a fixed rate that gives some assurances for lenders to get their money back through a special assessment placed on a property. The assessment provides localities with a legal force to keep a property’s unpaid balances and consider them delinquent, compared to a mortgage that doesn’t have that strength.

Because a local ordinance has been needed for that mechanism to be adopted, recent changes to make the program available statewide through the Virginia Energy department will likely make the program more accessible.

“The developer puts in 20%, the loan comes in at 60% [because] you’re not getting as much as used to, so there’s a gap,” Johnson said. “That gap can be filled multiple ways, but pace is a less expensive way to do that for 7 to 8% [financing costs], versus 15 to 20% on mortgage [financing].”

Jessa Coleman, director of sustainability and programs at Nuveen Green Capital, the lender for the Prince William project, said “the market is massive,” pointing to its $7 billion size around the country.

“Our assessments do sit on a property until they’re fully repaid unlike a mortgage, [which] some people may like that more than others depending on their financial position and what they need,” Coleman said. 

But otherwise, C-PACE is a very “flexible tool,” she added, by funding anything that’s not a single-family, private home; a multi-family building with four units or less; or any publicly- owned property. 

“If you take those things out, we’re still funding multi-family, we’re funding offices, we’re funding hotels, we’re funding mixed use facilities, we’re funding retail, we can fund industrial facilities, we can fund manufacturing.”

The historic Hotel Petersburg (Photo courtesy of Virginia Pace Authority)

In the eyes of PACE Equity executive vice president Ethan Elser, who was involved with the Petersburg hotel project, the program is “very rare.”

“It’s a chance to improve emissions, fund buildings in an attractive way that doesn’t have a government subsidy,” Elser said. “That’s very powerful and exciting for us.”

Following other legislative changes to expand the types of projects eligible to receive the funding, more projects are in the pipeline, Johnson said. The program is promoted by the Virginia Energy Efficiency Council, a leading non-profit focused on increasing energy efficiency around the state.

“C-PACE is an innovative way to finance clean energy and resiliency projects on commercial, multifamily, and nonprofit buildings,” states the Council’s website.

This article was updated to correct the name of Community Climate Collaborative.

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