” to help finance new climate-friendly affordable housing and retrofit existing buildings so that they’re more energy efficient and fossil fuel-free.
Green banks can be operated by public entities like states or municipalities, nonprofits or quasi-public agencies, as is the case in, which has the country’s oldest green bank. They can help finance a wide variety of projects — everything from rooftop solar panels and energy efficiency upgrades, to renewable energy projects and “clean transportation” efforts.
This could mean offering loans with low-interest rates and long repayment periods. It could mean financing projects that other lending institutions might consider too risky. Or it could mean assuming liability if a borrower can’t pay back the money.Green banks have in-house experts to evaluate the merits of green projects, so if they’re willing to help finance something, it can send a signal to other lending agencies that this is a safe investment.
“This is a really successful and proven model,” said David Melly, the Environmental League of Massachusetts’ legislative director. “It has shown great impacts from an equity perspective in terms of the investments directly benefiting folks that wouldn’t otherwise benefit from standard decarbonization incentives.
It could help landlords or nonprofits pay for climate-friendly building upgrades. It could help persuade developers to build new green and affordable units instead of a different project. And the beneficiaries will be many of the same people who currently pay disproportionately high energy bills and are most affected by climate change.It’s not clear how much Massachusetts will get from the federal government, but experts say it’s likely to be much more than the $50 million the state contributed.