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Energy-efficient homes have significantly lower default and delinquency rates than typical homes, according to an internal analysis conducted for a major financial institution last year. Here’s yet another reason why it makes no sense that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have effectively killed Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a financing tool that has helped make efficiency improvements affordable for thousands of American homeowners.

Homes built to federal Energy Star standards for efficiency had default and delinquency rates 11 percent lower than other homes, the 2009 analysis found, according to two people familiar with the document. The analysis accounted for variables including income and location, since many new homes are built in sprawling areas (where high transportation costs contribute to foreclosure rates).

“It was a robust statistical analysis that found, with a 99-percent confidence interval, that energy-efficient homes had significantly lower default and delinquency rates,” said one person. Both sources asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships with finance institutions.

The nation’s largest PACE program, in Sonoma County, Calif., has also found that energy-saving improvements tend to make homeowners more financially secure. The property-tax delinquency rate for the county’s 900-some PACE participants was 1.2 percent, compared with 3.5 percent for the county as a whole, according to deputy county counsel Kathy Larocque.

Read the complete story at GRIST

California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a lawsuit Wednesday against mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their federal regulator over their opposition to a home energy-improvement program backed by the Obama administration.

The regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, last week dealt a blow to that initiative when it directed Fannie and Freddie to avoid participating in the program.

The program to encourage home-energy improvements, called Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, allows municipalities to make loans through special property-tax assessments for homeowners to install solar panels, energy-efficient heating systems and other upgrades. Local governments sell municipal bonds to fund loans that property owners pay off over 15 to 20 years.

The program raised concerns among mortgage investors and regulators because PACE liens, like all property-tax assessments, are senior to existing mortgage debt. That enables cities to sell bonds more easily because in the event of a foreclosure, PACE liens are paid off before the mortgage lender can recoup any money.

FHFA and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have said the programs don’t have sufficient safeguards to ensure that homeowners have the ability to repay the new debt. Representatives of Fannie, Freddie and the FHFA declined to comment Wednesday.

Advocates say the companies and federal regulators are undermining a novel financing mechanism to leverage private-sector investments to fund energy retrofits, which will create jobs and encourage conservation.

Mr. Brown said in a statement that he was taking legal action “to stop the regulatory strangulation of the state’s grass-roots program.” Mr. Brown, a former California governor, is the Democratic nominee in this fall’s gubernatorial election.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court Wednesday, challenges the authority of federal regulators to restrict local governments’ ability to use their tax-assessment authority. The state also seeks to force regulators to conduct an environmental review before taking any steps that could curtail the program’s reach in California.

Mr. Brown said Fannie and Freddie had created “impermeable barriers to bank lending” after having “received enormous federal bailouts.” The federal government took over Fannie and Freddie nearly two years ago and has injected $145 billion to keep the companies afloat.

Supporters say they also plan to introduce legislation in Congress that would put the programs on solid footing. “We’ve got a problem, and the problem are the regulators,” said Jeffrey Tannenbaum, the founder of PACENow.org, an advocacy group, on a conference call with supporters on Wednesday.

Nearly two dozen states have passed laws that allow municipalities to set up the programs, and several cities, including San Francisco and San Diego, had planned to start offering PACE loans this summer. Advocates say the regulatory directives have made it impossible for the municipalities to claim millions in federal stimulus money to set up the programs.

by Nick Timiraos of the Wall Street Journal

“Greenwashing” typically refers to marketing and advertising claims that are based on environmental puffery rather than performance. Experience indicates that many claims, even those from sophisticated multinationals, fall under the “greenwashing” banner. While such claims may seem to make sense over the short-term, they create long-term potential for consumer dissatisfaction, regulatory challenges, and even monetary damages.

While standards differ globally, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations are a good model to follow virtually anywhere in the world. Listed below are the four factors of most concern to the FTC regarding advertising claims of all types, but specifically environmental claims.

1. Specificity

The single most important point to remember when making claims is to be as specific as possible. Doing so will require that claims be substantiated by communicating all of the following:

• What is being claimed  (e.g., Reduced energy consumption during production…)
• By how much – (e.g., …by 12%)
• Compared to what – (e.g., …versus the previous product formulation.)

Claims that are general or vague are not only considered to be meaningless, the FTC considers them to be deceptive. Technically, this means claims that appear to be simple and harmless, such as “eco-friendly” and “green,” are actually open to scrutiny and legal action.

Read the complete article at Environmental Leader

A full analysis of FTC environmental marketing claims by ULS Editor Bob Lilienfeld can be found at http://www.use-less-stuff.com/resources.htm

Almost two-thirds of healthcare organization, 62 percent, said they plan to make capital investments in energy efficiency over the next 12 months, according to a new survey by Johnson Controls.

In March 2010, Johnson Controls, in conjunction with American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) and the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), commissioned the 2010 Energy Efficiency Indicator (EEI) survey, which polled 2,882 executives and managers responsible for making investments and managing energy in facilities worldwide. Of these respondents, 288 operated in the healthcare sector in North America.

The results show the healthcare industry to be a leader among sectors in pursuing energy efficiency initiatives. The percentage of healthcare respondents planning such investments this year exceeds the overall percentage for North American by a 12-15 percent margin.

The survey also found that 58 percent of healthcare building decision-makers say that energy management was very or extremely important to their organization, compared with 52 percent among North American respondents across all sectors.

The survey found that the most important decision driver for energy efficiency investment in the healthcare sector is the potential for cost savings, as 99 percent of respondents said that factor was somewhat, very, or extremely important to their organization. Cost savings was also the most important driver in North America and worldwide.

Read the article at Environmental Leader

The City of Las Vegas announced that it would be putting its money on Hara to consolidate the city’s energy and natural resource emissions data. Hara will develop a system to track, manage and optimize the city’s sustainability initiatives, according to a press release.

Hara’s Environmental and Energy Management (EEM) solution will allow the city to manage the execution of its leading environmental and energy programs, track results per initiative, and provide an audit trail for any current or future regulatory requirements. The software will give the city clear performance metrics and stakeholder transparency capabilities that meet reporting requirements for sustainability initiatives and government funding programs such as the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG).

The city’s strategy includes numerous environmental policies and initiatives such as constructing new buildings to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, water stewardship, alternative transportation, recycling and greater energy efficiency through conservation and development of renewable energy sources.

Read the complete article at Environmental Leader.