Matching Climate Opportunities to Community Need

Resident engagement informs how every dollar of the Climate Protection Fund is allocated

Through support and resources from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ network of partners, the 25 cities in the American Cities Climate Challenge (ACCC) have taken bold action against climate change. While participating in ACCC, Denver established the Climate Protection Fund to generate a sustainable source of funding for the Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency (CASR), ensuring that the City would continue making progress towards its ambitious climate goals beyond the end of the Challenge.

Part I described the collaborative process through which CASR and the Climate Protection Fund that it oversees came into being. This article discusses how CASR is now determining how best to spend the Climate Protection Fund and some of the initial investments it has made.

In November 2020, more than 60 percent of Denver voters approved the Climate Protection Fund (CPF): a groundbreaking climate funding initiative that generates an estimated $40 million in annual revenue from a sales tax to fund climate action — with half the money specifically earmarked for equity.

The decisive passage of the CPF was a noteworthy milestone. It was not, however, a finish line. The City of Denver, through its Office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency (CASR), still needed to figure out how to invest the money in equitable climate action.

The ballot measure creating the Climate Protection Fund set some parameters on use of the fund at three levels. First, all CPF money must be invested in projects that advance the overarching goals of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution and implementing strategies to help residents adapt to unavoidable climate impacts.

Second, within this broad mandate, investments must align with six categories of allowable use:

• Green job creation through local workforce training.
• Increased investments in renewable energy.
• Neighborhood-based environmental and climate justice programs.
• Adaptation and resiliency programs that help vulnerable communities prepare for a changing climate.
• Programs that provide affordable, clean, safe and reliable transportation choices.
• Upgrading the energy efficiency of buildings and industry to reduce carbon emissions, utility bills, and indoor air pollution.

Finally, the ballot initiative contains a requirement that at least half of the CPF money be invested “with a strong lens toward equity, race, and social justice.” CASR has announced its intention to evaluate all proposed projects through an equity lens and stated that it views the 50% requirement as a floor, not a ceiling.

Even within the constraints of these nested requirements, there are still far more potential investments than there is money available. So how should CASR decide how to invest the fund? Answering that question has required further exercising its community engagement muscles for a heavy, humbling, and sustained lift. CASR has taken a multi-pronged approach to engagement:

Implement a Built-in Feedback Structure

CASR recognized that the Climate Action Task Force’s work had been critical in getting the CPF on the ballot. The diverse, deliberative, consensus-driven group’s successfully engaged the community and delivered actionable recommendations to City Council. CASR sought to replicate this successful process and format on a permanent basis with the Sustainability Advisory Council (SAC). SAC consists of seven standing committees that provide advice and recommendations to CASR staff, assist CASR in connecting with the people, communities, businesses, and institutions it serves, and promote and communicate the principles of sustainability broadly.

Leave the Home Turf

While the SAC provides an important framework to promote deep, sustained engagement toward a shared goal, the city recognized that it was not enough. CASR could not expect that community members would always come to it to present feedback and ideas; instead, CASR needed to go into the communities and get it.

For this reason, CASR designed a series of Rapid Assessments to be completed in the East Colfax, Elyria-Swansea, Globeville, Montbello, Northeast Park Hill, Valverde, Villa Park, West Colfax, Westwood, and Sun Valley neighborhoods. Each Rapid Assessment consists of a series of four meetings with local grassroots organizations, leaders and residents completed over the course of about eight weeks.

“It’s like a snapshot of the community,” says Jorge Figueroa, Community Partnerships Administrator for CASR. “What are the priority needs of the community and what barriers might exist for the Climate Protection Fund to reach the people who are doing the work on the ground?”

Follow the Leaders

One of the things that excites Figueroa the most about the Rapid Assessment process is the opportunity to work with community and nonprofit leaders. “It’s very rich information that you get when you invite the who’s who of local organizers,” he says. “To be able to have such a qualified expertise in our non-profit sector is really inspiring and allows us to build a very strong foundation.”

Listening to and learning from local leaders is essential to make sure CPF funding does not go toward programs that would be duplicative or competitive with existing local efforts, given the extensive organizing already underway in Denver neighborhoods.

Embrace Uncertainty

One perhaps unexpected feature of CASR’s commitment to respecting input and recommendations from local communities is a lack of predictability. If the decisions on how to invest the CPF were coming from the top down, it might make planning easier. Instead, CASR must grapple with the discomfort of the unknown.

“The process could be applied to every community and it’s going to come out with different results,” said Figueroa, reflecting on the Rapid Assessments. “Which can be a little stressful, because when you go into the co-creation process you don’t know what’s going to come out.” Stress aside, this uncertainty is a hallmark of authentic community engagement in that it signals that the outcomes of these assessments are not predetermined.

Initial Investments

Building off of the sector-specific recommendations and solutions from the Climate Action Task Force and feedback from its extensive community engagement efforts, CASR has already made investments ranging from a community solar project where money from the power generated will go toward energy bills for families in need to a large-scale tree planting effort to increase shade in the neighborhoods with high heat vulnerability. As reflected in its 2021 Annual Report, in its first year of operation, CASR exceeded its mandate to direct funds toward the most climate-vulnerable communities. Through the CPF, residents can access things like rebates for e-bikes and energy efficient heating and cooling, reduced costs for solar panel installations, paid workforce training programs, and free e-bike libraries for essential workers in the Westwood and Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods. In addition, the CPF has invested in several large-scale projects, some of which are featured below.

Electrification of the Forum Apartments:

Buildings and homes are currently responsible for 64% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Denver — a number that is irreconcilable with the city’s ambitious climate objectives. In response, Denver is aiming to achieve net zero emissions from buildings by 2040. New construction is low hanging fruit in this plan, since pioneering technologies and building code requirements make it relatively simple to enact and enforce emissions performance standards. Existing buildings are more complicated, but just as important. As Jennifer Gremmert, CEO and Executive Director of Energy Outreach Colorado, put it, “the buildings that we see outside now are still going to be here when these climate goals have to be met.”

Converting buildings that are currently reliant on natural gas to electrical systems is a vital strategy in Denver’s arsenal. Once the transition is completed, a converted building’s energy footprint stands to become greener and greener as the local utility provider, Xcel Energy, decarbonizes its grid. However, the switch is not always cost-effective. Not only is the electrical equipment typically more expensive, but, says Gremmert, “a lot of times, there are unintended consequences of replacing equipment where other types of expenses arise — electrical upgrades, a roof replacement, duct work change, things like that.”

As an example of this conundrum, take the Forum Apartments Complex. Owned by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless (CCH), the Forum Apartments consist of 100 studio units operated as permanent supportive housing where formerly unhoused residents receive services like case management, vocational support, and counseling. Along with about 120 other downtown buildings, the Forum Apartments is currently heated through the Denver Steam Loop, which has been operating since 1880. In 2019, Xcel had to install a new boiler at the Denver Steam Plant to continue providing service to the steam loop after it retired the generating station where steam for the loop had long been co-produced with electricity. To cover the costs of this new infrastructure, Xcel imposed a 36% rate increase on buildings on the steam loop.

Keeping operating costs at a minimum is critical to CCH’s mission. “We want to provide as much permanent housing as we possibly can through new construction and acquisitions,” says Jennifer Cloud, Vice President of Housing Development for CCH. “That task in and of itself is very expensive, let alone operating that housing long term.” When the rate hikes made remaining on the steam loop cost-prohibitive, CCH began working with Energy Outreach Colorado to model more affordable options.

From a climate perspective, electrification was the more sustainable choice. But from a financial perspective, a natural gas boiler system was more attractive. Cloud explained “the fact of the matter is that if we transitioned to a gas boiler and a fully gas system, we would see lower energy costs.”

Enter the Climate Protection Fund. Because upgrading the energy efficiency of buildings is an allowable use of CPF funding, the city was able to step in and bridge the cost gap between a natural gas system and an electric system. “The city, using CPF dollars, is investing over a million dollars to allow CCH to electrify the building, make long-needed updates to the system, and make a dramatic reduction in carbon,” says Gremmert. In this way, the modernization of the Forum Apartments contributes progress toward Denver’s emissions reduction goals while allowing CCH to stay focused on providing housing to Denver’s most vulnerable residents.

For more on the electrification of the Forum Apartments Complex, watch this video.

Mile High Youth Corps

One of the Climate Protection Fund’s earliest investments in green workforce development was in the Mile High Youth Corps (MHYC) Energy and Water Conservation Program. MHYC engages young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 to learn about energy and water conservation, careers in green industries, customer service, and leadership.Through the long-running program, CorpsMembers serve the Denver community by completing energy and water use assessments and installing free efficiency measures in the homes of income-qualified residents. The efficiency measures save an average of 630 killowatt hours of electricity and 12,500 gallons of water each year per household served, so the program both helps reduce emissions and helps improve Denver’s drought resiliency by reducing water consumption. Moreover, participating households save an average of $240 per year on utility bills.

The CPF investment will allow MHYC to expand its workforce development capabilities. MHYC has always served as a career launchpad for its CorpsMembers by providing employment experience ranging from general skills like leadership and customer service to specific technical skills like installing Ultra-High Efficiency Toilets, low-flow aerators, low-flow showerheads, programmable thermostats, and LED light bulbs. With CPF funding, MHYC will further strengthen its ability to recruit, train, and develop CorpsMembers in several ways:

• developing an outreach and recruitment campaign to target youth in Denver’s historically underserved neighborhoods.
• strengthening wraparound services, including housing, transportation, mental health, and food access supports.
• adding two new training certifications that are recognized by the Colorado Department of Labor, providing CorpsMembers with even clearer pathways to green jobs.
• improving career readiness training and create an employment advisory board to give CorpsMembers the opportunity to build an employment network while in the program.

With CPF funding, MHYC will enroll an additional 120 CorpsMembers into the Energy & Water Conservation Program over three years, with approximately two-thirds of the enrollment linking to the newly launched Colorado Climate Corps. All of these CorpsMembers will be enrolled in work-based learning​, with 85% of CorpsMembers who complete their term of service receiving a Building Science Principles certificate and 70% receiving a Roots of Success certificate. The goal is that 80% of CorpsMembers will find permanent employment within six months of completing their service term.

For more on the MHYC, watch this video with two corpsmembers describing their service experience in their own words.

E-bikes

In support of the allowable use of providing clean, safe, and reliable transportation, another one of the CPF’s initial investments replaces gasoline-powered trips with highly efficient e-bike transport and promotes equity at the same time.

The CPF funded a pilot project to deploy e-bikes to low-income essential workers in the Globeville, Elyria-Swansea, and Sun Valley neighborhoods. Use of the e-bikes is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 540 tons over five years, and the pilot also provides a free and convenient mobility option in communities with scarce public transportation.

Felix Antonio Serna, an e-bike recipient who works in the medical field, says that he commutes to work on his e-bike every day that is not too snowy and appreciates the convenience that the bike offers. “It’s so much easier being on a bike in downtown. You don’t have to deal with parking!” Even more importantly, commuting on the bike has improved his state of mind. “If you’re going through anything, the bike relieves the stress,” says Serna. “Once you get the hang of it, it feels amazing.”

Virgyl Gerdine, an e-bike recipient who works as a barista at Prodigy Coffee House, has had a similar experience with commuting on his e-bike. “The mental health benefits are really good,” he says. “It’s like you’re freeing your mind when you’re on the bike, because the breeze hits you and you just can clear your thoughts while you’re riding.”

Gerdine says that prior to getting the bike he often struggled to get to early morning shifts on time. “Walking all the way to the train and then having to wait for about five to 10 minutes — it was just making me late.” The e-bike changed things. “I didn’t have to wait for anything. I was just out the door and on my way to work. In ten minutes, I was here.”

The convenience and mental health benefits of the e-bike may be Serna and Gerdine’s favorite aspects, but being a part of Denver’s climate objectives instills a sense of pride, too. Says Serna, “the climate contribution that I get to make while I ride may not be a lot in the world’s eyes, but in mine I feel like it’s just a little bit that I can offer.”

Following the successful pilot project, the city also launched a broader e-bike rebate program with CPF funding, making all Denver residents eligible for a rebate. The massive popularity of the program surpassed the city’s expectations, and they received over 3,000 rebate applications in under three weeks. The program will relaunch with additional funding on January 31, 2023.

Hear more from Virgyl and Felix about their e-bike experiences here.

The Road Ahead

Jorge Figueroa likes to remind people that “the Climate Protection Fund was created by the people, for the people.” By voting to impose a sales tax on themselves, Denver residents began reducing emissions and increasing climate change resilience even when corresponding action at the national level seemed unlikely to ever materialize. Then, the federal tide turned in the summer of 2022, and Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act — the most ambitious climate legislation in United States history. Because of its work establishing the CPF and CASR, Denver already has its priorities, objectives, and strategies at the ready. The City is uniquely prepared to not only take advantage of new funding avenues in the IRA, but also serve as a guide for implementation in other cities and at bigger scales.

The time for united climate action is now, and Denver and the other cities in the American Cities Climate Change are leading the way.