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News focused exclusively on financing for
energy efficiency and renewable energy
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CEFF hands editorship this month to Neda Arabshahi, a trailblazer in energy justice. Neda runs the Center for Resilience and Clean Energy at Inclusiv. In that role, she trains and supports a network of community-based financial institutions scaling climate-friendly financing solutions for low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color. She was preparing for a conference in Puerto Rico as we put this edition together.
This selection shows what brought Neda to the path she's creating - and where she sees all of us turning our practice in the years ahead.
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Neda Arabshahi
(M.B.A. '10, M.E.Sc. '10)Job:
Director, Center for Resilience and Clean Energy
Inclusiv
What That Means I Do:
Low-income communities and communities of color face disproportionately high energy costs and devastation from climate-related events, and they have not had access to affordable financing that would enable them to adopt clean energy solutions. I support over 140 community-based financial institutions across the country (credit unions, minority depository institutions, CDFI loan funds, and community banks). They work to build scalable programs around the needs of people who face structural barriers when they try to join the clean-energy economy.
Where We Can Collaborate:
If you are a community-based lender and would like to develop a green loan program, please reach out any time and apply to our free training courses through the University of New Hampshire. If you work with communities that lack access to affordable, accessible financing for clean energy projects, I’d love to connect you with our network of lenders. And if you're working to build equity and financial inclusion in a world that still shakes at the idea, I have a lot to learn from you.
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What Strengthened Me On This Journey
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In college while studying Environmental Science and during my first job at Rainforest Alliance, I became increasingly concerned about climate change. At the time, Andy Revkin (whom you see on the left) was one of the few journalists reporting on it for a mainstream publication. His pieces in the New York TIms were moving and helped influence my decision to go to grad school at Yale to focus on climate change. They also have stayed relevant as the science around climate has settled. Here are a few of his articles that have stayed top of mind for me.
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Two Policy Innovations You Should Know Inside and Out
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As part of President Biden’s January 2021 Executive Actions, the White House established the Justice40 Initiative. “Justice40 is a whole-of-government effort to ensure that Federal agencies work with states and local communities to make good on President Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.”
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What Sticks With Me Over Successive News Cycles
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Solar Power Saves Money Month to Month, But Not Everyone Can Make a Solar Purchase
While more than a year has passed since this story appeared, the policy failure it highlights persists. It's too often too hard to tap solar power without the resources to write a big check upfront.
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A Community Bank Could Take a Shot, With Some Policy Support That's Still Overdue
My belief in credit unions springs from a conviction that they make financial inclusion feasible. They can harness local knowledge that supports job growth and renewable deployment in neighborhoods that need both. This op/ed from the head of the Climate Finance Fund made that case last fall.
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"Meeting People Where They Are," Edging Energy Equity Toward Where It Needs to Be
Our work keeps us in contact with civic leaders and ordinary folks who pool their strengths and patience to stabilize their lives while they foster the energy transition. This radio story from Milwaukee, which aired this April, gets into some details about initiatives that can scale. (As an appendix, this blog post surveys notable solar programs for low-income communities.)
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And You Might Decide Your Bank Needs to Balance Its Balance Sheet With Climate Smarts
One home truth I keep relearning is that things don't have to persist the way they are just because we're used to them. As an example, here's a blogger taking on the idea of moving bank deposits to an institution that never invests in fossil-fuel companies.
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| | Something Longer I Valued (And Would Love to Discuss)
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For Clean Energy to Work in Affordable Contexts, Financing Hardly Poses the Only Hurdle
My work with communities humbles me each day by reminding me that the models we learned in school assume a kind of order that eludes people living with poverty. Scholars at the University of New Hampshire gleaned insights from structured interviews, events and trainings. They poured those insights into this research. The paper explores the challenges facing affordable-project developers. It also offers recommendations for participants throughout the development system.
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| | Sources That Light My Way Every Week
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I rely on the no-nonsense journalists at E&E News and the muckrackers at Inside Climate News, along with the more optimistic and occasionally corporate voices at GreenBiz, to stay literate and up-to-date. (GreenBiz sustains a partnership with CBEY.) Please tell me what else I should be reading, or what reading these titles helped your team to do.
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| | The Book That Keeps Coming Back to Me (and Why)
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Robert Caro's biography, The Power Broker, provides a detailed map of the ways Robert Moses developed and wielded control to manipulate New York City. By forcing through his urban development agenda, and marginalizing the humans that occupied that urban landscape, Moses destroyed low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color, and accelerated inequity and financial exclusion. The city plan that Moses built continues to impact New York today as he left behind a city struggling with environmental racism, air pollution, and crumbling critical infrastructure.
For those of us working for systemic change, insight into how figures like Robert Moses have accelerated so many environmental and social issues can offer lessons in how to identify and fight corruption in the fight for environmental and social justice
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CEFF will resume regular job listings with our next student-driven newsletter on May 18. For now, though, Neda's hiring. Please check out this hybrid opportunity in the Southwest.
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