ACEEE’s initiative for affordable, energy-efficient housing for renters
Research Spotlight:
Guide for local governments. Our guide presents a series of actions that local governments can take to reduce energy use in rental properties, preserve or increase housing affordability, and build capacity to design, implement, and evaluate equitable policies.Toolkit for local governments. Our rental housing energy efficiency toolkit provides research and case studies on integrated energy efficiency and anti-displacement strategies, roles for local government in filling financing and funding gaps, stakeholder and community engagement, and comprehensive equity accountability measures.
Fact sheet. This resource provides a high-level summary of the different sections of the toolkit. In addition to English, it is available in Arabic, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Vietnamese.
Rental owner engagement webinar. This webinar highlights strategies and resources for identifying and engaging rental property owners.
Policy tracker. See which cities, counties, and states have adopted equitable energy efficiency policies and programs for rental housing.
Dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from houses and other residential buildings is vital for tackling climate change. Rental homes present an added challenge: They are less energy efficient than others, on average consuming 15% more energy per square foot than owner-occupied homes.
These inefficient homes also mean renters spend a lot on energy bills, with nearly one-third having high energy burdens, spending more than 6% of their income on energy bills. Yet for the more than one in three U.S. households that rent their homes, making energy-saving improvements may be difficult or even prohibited.
ACEEE’s Energy Equity for Renters initiative helps tackle the challenge of reducing energy waste in rental housing. Our goal: protect the climate, reduce energy costs, and preserve affordable neighborhoods.
ACEEE is helping five jurisdictions lower utility bills and preserve affordable housing
ACEEE’s Energy Equity for Renters initiative works with cities and community-based organizations to create programs that deliver energy-efficiency upgrades while preserving or expanding affordable rental housing. ACEEE provides technical assistance to support program design, policy development, stakeholder engagement, and program evaluation. This work helps communities implement effective, equitable rental efficiency programs. In 2026 and 2027, the initiative is supporting five cities:
- Boulder, Colorado: Boulder’s Building Performance Ordinance (BPO) aims to reduce energy use in commercial and industrial buildings. Recently, the city aligned its BPO with Colorado’s Building Performance Standard, expanding the number of multifamily properties required to complete energy retrofits. In partnership with ACEEE, Boulder Housing Partners, and other partners, the city plans to develop an energy retrofit displacement mitigation toolkit. This resource will aim to help prevent increased renter cost burdens and displacement as more multifamily buildings undergo required energy retrofits.
- Evanston, Illinois: Evanston’s Healthy Buildings Ordinance is a building performance standard setting energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and renewable electricity targets that buildings over 20,000 square feet must meet by 2050. Evanston, in partnership with local nonprofit Connections for the Homeless, will work with ACEEE to survey renters in properties subject to the Healthy Buildings Ordinance to understand the extent of the energy burdens among residents. ACEEE and its partners in Evanston will create a roadmap to significantly reduce the energy burdens these renters face. The data gathered will also help identify properties that may require support or special policies to mitigate any adverse impacts from the ordinance. We plan to follow up with property owners through a second survey or focus groups to gauge their understanding and awareness of the ordinance and future building performance standards. In addition, we hope to obtain information from property owners on financial, technical, and operational barriers to compliance so we can identify where assistance is needed and what solutions can be most helpful.
- Olympia, Washington: Olympia launched the Safe Housing and Rental Efficiency (SHARE) Accelerator to connect owners of affordable rental housing to funding, guidance, and resources to streamline energy efficiency as well as health and safety upgrades. ACEEE will provide technical assistance and strategic communications guidance to Olympia on how to effectively engage with rental property owners and tenants, as well as program evaluation support.
- Central Falls, Rhode Island: Central Falls, Rhode Island—a diverse community with a high proportion of renters—will pilot an Energy Navigator Training Program in partnership with a community-based organization, utility, state agency, and land grant university to improve renters’ access to energy efficiency and weatherization programs. The initiative will develop a structured training curriculum and a weatherization roadmap tool to equip trusted community-based workers to help income-eligible renters understand eligibility pathways and overcome barriers to program participation. ACEEE will provide technical assistance to support program design and evaluation efforts to strengthen outcomes and inform replication in similar communities.
- Miami, Florida: Miami launched the heat sensors in homes initiative to understand how extreme heat impacts residents and their experiences with keeping their households cool. The city partnered with community-based organizations to recruit 78 households to track indoor and outdoor heat and conduct surveys to document their experiences with extreme heat. Through this project, the city found that 20% of participants reported struggling to afford their electric bills and keep their homes cool during the summer. ACEEE will provide technical assistance tosupport the city and community-based partners in designing two programs to help residents implement renter-friendly solutions and help owners of rental housing make improvements for their tenants. Both programs are driven by the goals of keeping homes cool, saving energy, and lowering energy bills.
Energy Equity for Renters has completed two previous rounds of technical assistance to 15 communities from 2022 to 2025.
ACEEE’s Energy Equity for Renters initiative is generously supported by the Kresge Foundation and The Summit Foundation.
Our Recent Work
- Multifamily energy savings project. Our work to support comprehensive building upgrade programs serving renters living in market-rate and affordable multifamily housing.
- Energy burden research. In addition to renters, we found that low-income, Black, Hispanic, and Native American households all face dramatically higher energy burdens—spending a greater portion of their income on energy bills—than the average household.
- Low-income energy efficiency programs. ACEEE’s resources on best practices to expand energy efficiency investments for households with low incomes.
- Local high-impact strategies toolkit. Toolkit includes guides on residential energy disclosure mechanisms as well as commercial and multifamily energy benchmarking, transparency, and labeling.
- Mandatory building performance standards. A growing group of cities and some states are mandating retrofits of inefficient buildings by requiring them to meet standards that cap their energy use or carbon emissions.
- Rental property energy labeling. This report summarizes the findings from a rental energy labeling experiment, explains the key design features of effective energy labels, and provides recommendations to local policymakers for designing and implementing energy disclosure policies for rental properties.