Focus Area
Clean Energy
The risks and costs of climate change are not equally shared: Research shows that low-income people and communities of color disproportionately live in places with poor environmental quality and the resulting adverse health effects.
In most cities, the high cost of housing and historic segregation have led to concentrations of people living around industrial sites, freeways and other polluters that are contaminating the air and compromising the atmosphere through carbon emissions and other toxins.
Reinvestment Fund has long been committed to investments that both support thriving communities and are sustainable for the environment. Over two decades, this commitment has resulted in investments to support a broad variety of projects from wind farms to energy-efficient retrofits.
Our Approach
Since 1993, we have invested $103 million in clean energy projects like wind farms and solar power, and in projects that reduce our country’s carbon footprint, including energy efficient building design, local food systems, transit-oriented development and more.
Our financial products and technical assistance encourage our borrowers—from food retailers to affordable housing developers and education providers—to incorporate clean energy solutions in their projects. We finance energy conservation and efficiency measures as well as the use of renewable energy and other clean energy technologies.
By reducing energy waste and promoting the use of renewable energy, such as wind and solar, we seek to reduce the adverse health and environmental effects that result from conventional, carbon-intensive energy sources. And, by producing savings year after year, energy efficiency improvements are beneficial and profitable investments, and have been shown to increase the market value of a property.
Invest with UsOur Lending
Reinvestment Fund is an expert in financing structures such as:
- Energy Savings Agreements (ESAs) that typically involve an ESCO that designs, finances, executes and manages building energy retrofits, usually guaranteeing specified levels of savings for clients through long term ESA service contracts.
- Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with developers who construct, own and operate solar, cogeneration or other clean energy generation projects and sell the power to end users through long-term contracts.
- Portfolios of consumer loans with homeowners, small businesses and others, typically originated by other energy lenders, for building energy improvements or distributed energy systems.
- Real estate energy measures including energy retrofits in existing, occupied buildings in which the building owner is the borrower; or energy measures in gut-rehab and new construction building projects in which the project developer is the borrower.
In these ways, Reinvestment Fund has served as an innovative capital partner for myriad clean energy developers, firms, and organizations around the country.
Reinvestment Fund also administers several clean energy loan programs.
