Market, Political & Financing Solutions for Energy Retrofits

Energy Performance Score, the Future Market for Measuring Energy Performance

Mar 6, 2009 at 3:00 pm

Presented by: Sean Penrith, Executive Director, Earth Advantage; Aaron Fairchild, Managing Director, G2B Ventures

Session Description:

The playing field for energy efficient retrofits is changing fast. Public and private equity is circling and there is a noticeable ground swell that will result in access to capital that if not realized in 2009, will be in early 2010. What does this mean for green building practices? It means get ready for green remodels. Green is great; energy efficiency rules the day. Incentive dollars focused on energy efficiency from utilities and government will continue to increase and motivated homeowners will be focused on this area for the foreseeable future. Energy efficiency is the green shovel that is poised to dig the economy out of its rut.

The Energy Performance Score (EPS) is a tool that assesses the energy demand and carbon emissions of new and existing homes. This model analyzes the homes energy use and carbon emissions and produces a comparable score of the homes energy performance, an analysis of energy use and a prescriptive path of recommendations on how to improve the home score in a cost effective manner. Homeowners, municipal governments, utilities, and the real estate industry can use this easy-to-read certificate to compare the performance and impact on climate change of new and existing homes. In addition, the EPS provides a means of quantifying and measuring energy performance, which supply the valuation factor needed to move the appraisal and financing aspects of remodeling forward.

Bios:

Late 2005, Sean took the Executive Director position with Earth Advantage, Inc, a leading provider of sustainable building solutions and one of the largest third-party verified green building programs in the country. He and his team have successfully grown the non-profit organization into a leading program provider and think-tank to devise creative green building, green market and climate change solutions for the built environment. Earth Advantage, Inc now operates in OR, WA, HI, AL, MT, ID, CA and New England. They offer a slew of certification programs that cover new construction, existing homes, commercial and communities.

Aaron Fairchild is a co-founder and Managing Partner of G2B Ventures. He began his career in residential real estate finance at Continental Savings Bank and Pacific Crest Savings Bank. Throughout his career in real estate finance he has been involved in providing more than $250 million of financing for a wide variety of local real estate acquisitions. Aaron has been working within the Seattle community to create energy efficient, consumer financing solutions for existing buildings throughout the last four years. He serves on Mayor Nickels Existing Buildings, Green Building Task Force, works as a consultant to ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia on the development of a revolving loan fund designed for residential energy efficient retrofits, and recently he worked with Puget Sound Energy in their Residential Energy Efficiency Department. Aaron is a graduate of Executive MBA program at the University of Washington.