ICAST’s Work with Environmental Justice Communities Advances Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
As recently announced, ICAST was awarded $50,000 in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to serve multifamily affordable housing (MFAH) property owners in environmental justice (EJ) communities in New Mexico. Maintaining healthy, affordable housing is a clear EJ goal: it promotes healthy, productive, and sustainable environments for underserved communities including people of color, disabled individuals, and fixed-income seniors—all of whom often face health risks associated with exposure to toxins and poor indoor air quality. For this project, Creating Energy Efficient and Healthy Homes in Environmental Justice Communities, ICAST will work with partners to outreach to MFAH business owners and provide educational opportunities and property assessments. These services will help owners understand the funding available to them to implement health and safety, energy efficiency, and water conservation measures at their properties.
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Beyond offsetting: Why we need carbon philanthropy, not carbon offsets, to solve the climate crisis
New Climate Institute and a growing number of NGOs are recommending “climate contributions” as an alternative to traditional offsetting. NCI defined four main attributes of a corporate climate contribution. It must: a) Provide support to mitigation projects beyond investments within the company’s value chain; b) Derive funding using a company-wide internal price on carbon in line with the Paris Agreement goal c) Disclose details on the amount of funding, recipients of funding, and anticipated impact; and d) Claim only to make a climate contribution without claiming ownership of offsets that could be used to make a carbon neutralization claim.
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ICAST Policy Blog
White House Announcements
The White House has been busy and released multiple fact sheets and press releases in relation to the housing and energy industries.
- Modernize Building Codes, Improve Climate Resilience, and Reduce Energy Costs
- In this June 1 announcement, the White House highlighted that modernized energy codes can save households an average of $162 dollars each year on utility bills; unfortunately, two out of every three communities in the United States have not adopted the latest buildings codes and are thus vulnerable to climate impacts and higher energy costs. According to the announcement, the initiative plans to utilize $225 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support implementation of updated building energy codes.
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Fiat commits to fully-electric product range from July 2022
Fiat has announced the removal of all non-electrified vehicles from sale in the UK. This will take effect from 1st July 2022 with the whole Fiat range now coming in electrified forms, from hybrids to fully-electric.
In 2021, more than 60% of Fiat’s line-up was electrified offering at least one low emission version of each model for UK customers. This year, the Italian manufacturer goes a step further by confirming 100% of the range will be electrified from July 2022.
For the full story, click here.