NYSERDA and HCR co-developed and launched a pilot called the Clean Energy Initiative ("CEI") program, which integrates technical assistance and clean energy funding through NYSERDA's support into HCR’s affordable housing finance application process. This panel will cover the collaboration, program design, opportunity for scaling, and lessons learned to date, as well as highlighting a project currently participating in the CEI program.

The triple bottom line of sustainability addresses the importance of environmental, social and economic considerations. It's something we all strive to achieve. That being said, the social aspect is often forgotten or overlooked, particularly in affordable housing. Very often, residents are spoken for and not included in the decision making process upfront. This session will highlight typical resident responses and concerns that we hear every day. It will also highlight new strategies that aim to improve interactions with residents, throughout the design process.

In 2021, HPD and NYSERDA launched a joint $24 million pilot giving direct grants to HPD Preservation projects to (holistically) electrify hot water, space heating or both. This was possible by relying on HPD's rigorous oversight paired with dedicated Technical Assistance from Steven Winter Associates and Taitem Engineering. By Fall 2022, we will have our first cohort (nearly 175 housing units) under construction and be in the design stages with a second cohort.

Phius (formerly the Passive House Institute U.S.) introduced a new version of their certification standard in 2021 with the goal of making it easier and more affordable for single-family residential homes to achieve certification. In this presentation, you will learn about this new Prescriptive Path and how it can simplify the design and certification process for single-family homes and make certification available for a wider range of project teams, project sizes and project budgets.

Environmental exploitation very often goes hand in hand with human exploitation. How do we harness the collective knowledge we have gained from our work quantifying carbon, improving health impacts, and reducing environmental degradation, and apply it to solving this pressing humanitarian issue? The Design for Freedom Initiative by Grace Farms is raising awareness about the pervasiveness of forced and child labor in the construction material supply chain.