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Human-caused climate change and the war in Ukraine are fruit of the same tree: fossil fuels. With Russia being the world’s largest natural gas exporter and second largest exporter of crude oil (behind the US), Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will send shock waves to economic conditions worldwide. With gas markets more global and more commoditized, US natural gas prices in 2021 experienced growth that led to 35% inflation in energy prices. As many have already seen and felt, energy prices in general have increased causing communities experiencing high energy burdens to fall further into energy poverty. Energy burden is the percentage of household income spent on utility costs. Households across the US face a high energy burden if they pay more than 6% of their income on energy bills, and are severely energy burdened if paying over 10% of their income on utility bills. Energy burden is particularly notable for its spillover impact on health, wealth, and housing: A third of American households skipped a meal or medicines in the past year to pay a utility bill The number one reason people take out a short term loan like a payday loan is to pay a utility bill Energy burden has been a leading indicator of evictions and displacement and is correlated with negative affordable housing outcomes As the US also experiences national security and defense pressures to export more natural gas to Europe making up for the loss of Russian supplies alongside the lingering price effects from 2021, global energy prices will likely feel upward pressure, with short run impacts growing as international economic sanctions against Russia grow due to its invasion of Ukraine. Given the core necessity and dependence on fossil fuels in maintaining a high quality of life in most American households, these price outcomes are likely to exacerbate energy burdens across the nation. And as with most things, those already struggling will be impacted the most. The long-term consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine not only impact Europe’s energy supply, but also our energy supply across the US. Halting Russian oil and natural gas imports to the US would create market pressures to increase prices which in turn would exacerbate energy burdens already felt in vulnerable communities across the country. With the current state of the world, it is evident more than ever before that reliance on fossil fuels is not only environmentally destructive and unsustainable, but also politically unstable, a threat to our national security, and harms equitable development efforts. Wars like this one will continue to destroy economies and livelihoods as long as we remain dependent on these fuels. Using tools such as the Greenlink Equity Map can help community leaders and policy makers understand how energy inequities are spread across neighborhoods in the US and where some of our biggest opportunities to move away from fossil fuels lie. GEM is an online map allowing the visualization and analysis of over 30 equity related issues at the census tract level. Having access to accurate environmental and equity data significantly advances community collaboration in achieving climate and social justice for a new way forward in the wake of global wars and economic instability. To learn more about how other cities are using GEM, read our GEM stories here. For more information on how to use GEM, book a demo today. Image by Marcus Spike

Empower Clarkston was a 2-year job training pilot program that offered energy and water efficiency retrofits for qualified households in the 30021 zip code of Clarkston, Georgia. The goal of Empower Clarkston was to serve and train refugee populations towards green-collar careers and to analyze Clarkston’s electricity, gas, water burdens and income indicators. The average energy burden nationwide is 3.23% while the average in Clarkston is 7.9% which is considered a high energy burden. Participants in this program had an average energy burden over 10% with some over 15%. Energy burdens of 10% or more are considered severe. Our GEM analysis and maps of these indicators at the census tract level helped guide program leaders to understand which neighborhoods were most impacted by high energy burdens. Clarkston also used GEM to analyze equity indicators across the city such as utility burden, race, housing (evictions, living cost burdens, renter vs. owner), as well as income, health (asthma and lack of health insurance), transportation burden, and internet accessibility. Using these indicators, Empower Clarkston partnered with Southface, Friends of Refugees, and Tekton Training to develop and deliver training in weatherization to 12 refugees from Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia as well as support with job placement including coaching and resume development. The classroom curriculum consisted of construction safety, building science, combustion safety, air sealing, ducts, insulation, and water efficiency. The team was able to complete retrofits on 17 residences but the continuation of it was hampered due to the pandemic. They were able to benchmark energy consumption for one apartment using Georgia Power’s Automated Benchmarking Tool (ABT) and with our tableau dashboard, we were able to see a 33% decrease in average energy consumption between 2020 and 2021 for that apartment. The team is working on collecting data from the rest of homes that were weatherized. Although the pandemic presented the team with many challenges, this program and partnership between Tekton Training, Friends of Refugees, and Southface allowed for hands-on learning and integration opportunities for refugees as well as weatherization and utility data education to residents experiencing high energy burdens. For more information or to apply for training or home improvements call 678 532 7682 or email EmpowerClarkston@gmail.com. Image from Empower Clarkston SSCF Final Grant Report

Deceleration News is an online journal that shares news related to ecological, political, and cultural crisis with a focus on the intersection of environment and justice. Greg Harman with Deceleration News was interested in identifying the top 5 neighborhoods in San Antonio with the highest number of homes experiencing severe energy burden. Access to GEM allowed them to easily find this data at the neighborhood level, identifying the West, Southwest, and Northwest areas of San Antonio with the most homes paying more than one of every ten dollars to CPS Energy. Greg is excited to use GEM to present critical data and evidence that can speak to their recommendations they’re making at the city level on how to address and alleviate energy burden across the City of San Antonio. Read the full story and view the top 5 neighborhoods in San Antonio and experiencing severe energy burden and their median household incomes. Greg Harman of Deceleration News

With heat waves, hurricanes, storms, flooding, and pollution, the City of Orlando is interested in staying active on overall city resiliency. Because buildings in Orlando account for 70% of the city’s carbon footprint, they have been using the Greenlink Equity Map (GEM) to create and evaluate policies and programs that support higher performing buildings. These policies would set parameters for buildings in terms of how they should be performing from an energy and water standpoint. By using GEM and their own Tax Assessor data sets, the City has been able to study and identify some of the most vulnerable neighborhoods in terms of energy burden in Orlando. These policies and programs would also identify where the building’s performing standards intersect with issues of equity such as cost of living, income stress, livability, and racial distribution. By taking an equitable approach, they’re able to holistically create policy parameters from a community perspective. They have also been using the GEM Process Guide as a roadmap for engaging from a more collaborative approach to create a sense of ownership among the other organizations and partners they’re working with. The GEM tool and the Process Guide has been useful for community partners interested in clearly identifying what energy burden looks like in the City of Orlando and how it’s related to equity and race. Community partners have taken this data to work directly with neighbors and community residents on their energy burden concerns. This data will help inform the City on how to best support higher performing buildings in a more sustainable data-driven and equitable way. For more information on how the City of Orlando has been using GEM, contact Sustainability Manager at the City of Orlando, Ashley Van Stone. Photo by Mike Haupt

The City of Milwaukee has been using GEM with their Climate and Equity Task Force to study energy burden and how they can deliver a robust climate transition for People of Color. In Milwaukee's American Rescue Plan Act proposal for Milwaukee's Recovery and Resilience Plan, Mayor Tom Barrett mentions how they’re using GEM to track energy burden among Black and Latino residents in the City of Milwaukee! The plan proposes an energy efficiency fund of $5 million for their Affordable and Sustainable Housing category. The purpose of this project would be to assist households struggling with energy bills by reducing their energy costs through energy saving retrofits such as insulation and HVAC systems. The project will focus on households in qualified census tracts with the highest energy disparities as identified by GEM data. We also recently published a report on the City of Milwaukee's successes with decreasing their energy burdens over time from 2013-2018. To download the report, go here. For more information on how the City of Milwaukee is using GEM, contact Erick Shambarger at eshamb@milwaukee.gov. Photo by Tom Barrett

The City of Cleveland is using our Greenlink Equity Map (GEM) to overlay racial composition with energy burden in neighborhoods across Cleveland. Using the GEM mapping tool, they were able to identify the top 100 majority-black communities in Cleveland experiencing the worst energy burden, while only 1 majority white community fell within the top third experiencing energy burden. With this information, they targeted organizations and neighborhoods to take part in clean energy community surveys in order to drive Cleveland's Clean and Equitable Energy Future Plan. View the full plan here. The City has also been working together with Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and Cleveland Tree Coalition on a project related to energy burden, tree planing, and urban heat island in the City of Cleveland. The 2020 Cleveland Tree Plan update recommends a strategic and equitable neighborhood based tree planting strategy based on a vulnerability index. Using GEM data, they have been able to strategically design tree planting programs across the city in communities with heavy utility burdens and disparities. For more information on how Cleveland Neighborhood Progress is using GEM, contact Divya Sidhar at DSridhar@clevelandnp.org . Photo by DJ Johnson

The City of San Jose is using the Greenlink Equity Map (GEM) for their recent partnership with students' capstone projects at local universities working with the Climate Smart City GIS library. This partnership will support the City by informing their zero emissions targets. They’re also studying asthma rate data and lack of internet access in San Jose to support its climate and equity goals across the city. Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement at the City of San Jose is also using GEM to work on housing equity. Their team is studying the renter vs. owner, multi-family vs. single family indicators found in GEM to build community engagement and support their fair housing policy and programs. For more information on how the City of San Jose is using GEM, contact Yael Kisel at Yael.Kisel@sanjoseca.gov. Photo by: Kehn Hermano

The City of Charlotte has been working with the Greenlink Equity Map (GEM) in partnership with Clean Air Carolina, an organization that advocates for the health of all North Carolinians through equitable and collaborative solutions and initiatives. Because Clean Air Carolina’s work has a heavy focus on air pollution and health, they are specifically using the GEM maps to layer asthma and energy burden in the City of Charlotte and the City of Raleigh. With this data, they will be able to identify certain neighborhoods with health disparities related to air pollution across both cities. These findings would also allow them to identify opportunities for energy improvements within these neighborhoods! Through stakeholder meetings with the City of Charlotte and Firefly Consulting, we have also been able to put together an anti-displacement agenda for these energy improvements. This information would allow them to identify some of the communities in these cities most in need of resources, monitoring, and policy reformation. The City of Charlotte is also interested in using GEM to create an energy/equity strategy to look at what kind of programs they should be developing for the future in order to address the pressing equity issues present. For more information on how the City of Charlotte and Clean Air Carolina is using GEM, you can contact Catherine Kummer at Catherine.Kummer@charlottenc.gov Photography by: Wes Hicks

The City of Denver is using the Greenlink Equity Map (GEM) to overlay their building benchmarking data over the GEM data in order to explore their commercial energy efficient focused energy policies with an equity emphasis. We're also currently working with the City of Denver to incorporate an equity index into GEM. They’re interested in strengthening their equity work with community, government, private, and non-profit partners to dismantle systemic inequities and barriers to growth across the city. Their goal is to create weighted equity scores for the census tracts containing 17,000 buildings across the city as they work to increase the city’s safety, health, and inclusion. With the integration of this equity index, GEM users would have the ability to map and identify which buildings they should prioritize for aid and resources. When coupled with GEM’s forthcoming change over time variables, the equity index will also be used to produce a report card for the City to use at the citywide level addressing: - Areas of Progress - Areas for Improvement - Comparisons to other cities Having a tool or index to properly measure the performance and progress on equity of the city’s buildings is crucial for neighborhoods, communities, businesses, and residents to thrive. It will also help serve as a communication device when integrated with change over time data, providing a measure of progress across the city and within communities. For more information on how the City of Denver is using GEM, please contact Maria Thompson at Maria.Thompson@denvergov.org. Photography by: Andrew Coop

The City of Philadelphia Office of Sustainability has been using the Greenlink Equity Map (GEM) for guidance on investments in energy burdens and climate justice in their Energy Burden Focus Groups to address disparity in Philadelphia communities. These Focus Groups provide the City an opportunity to directly hear from Philadelphians about their experiences with housing and energy use. Image: City of Philadelphia. Hunting Park Neighborhood Advisory Committee Board with the shipment of air conditioners after convening energy burden focus group and spending the summer giving away 130 ac units and 30 fans to neighbors living in the hotter than average neighborhood, Hunting Park. At each meeting, facilitators use the GEM maps to show energy burdens in different neighborhoods and how they relate to other indicators such as racial composition, asthma rates, eviction rates, housing type, and more. They’ve found the maps to be useful when talking with community based organization leaders for joint-meaning making as well as for knowledge exchange to drive positive change. As they continue to use the maps and facilitate these focus groups, the City is hoping to use the data GEM provides to expand conversations with residents about energy burden and energy equity. For more information on how the City of Philadelphia is involving community members to address the most burdened neighborhoods, visit the City of Philadelphia Office of Sustainability. Image: City of Philadelphia. Heat Ambassadors in North Philadelphia talking about energy burden and distributing energy efficiency resources.

The City of Honolulu has been using GEM to look at energy burden trends across the city. While analyzing our GEM data, they learned that their data from Hawaiian Electric Companies (HECO) was slightly different. After studying multiple years of HECO data, we came to the conclusion that the discrepancies were coming from the difference in using bill data (HECO) and survey data (GEM and our Census data). Multi-family homes with master meters would be aggregated bill data, whereas individual survey results would lead to different calculated values for energy burden. Having access to GEM energy data has encouraged energy stakeholders including the City to break down silos and share data to best understand what the community needs are. Looking at both sets of data has allowed them to start thinking about energy burden differently across the island. They’ve been strategizing on how to move forward with more solar panels on homes, especially for low-income areas, and how to distribute the benefits and burdens of the energy transition more equitably. For more information on the status of this project, you can contact Anna Mines at anna.mines@honolulu.gov Image from the Greenlink Equity Map.

Environmental justice organization, Verde, serves communities in Portland, Oregon by building environmental wealth through social enterprise, outreach, and advocacy. Over the past year (from February 2020-April 2021), Verde participated in the Greenlink Equity Mapping (GEM) Project facilitated by Upright Consulting Services. Verde provided consulting support for the development of the mapping tool and organized community through participatory research around a number of key issues with the Build/Shift team. The Built/Shift team is a group of community leaders through the Zero Cities Project organized to approach building performance standards through a justice lens. Over the course of the year, the Build/Shift team hosted three Zoom workshops about Community Health, Housing and Transportation, and Community Safety and the Election and Energy Cost Burden. Verde also supported the development of the GEM tool to ensure that it was usable and focused on the data that might be most important to understanding disparities and creating equitable outcomes in Portland. Verde has stated that the GEM tool will be useful in the next phase of their work to support the community-collected energy, energy burden, and housing data. This data will be used for the community-led development of a building performance standards policy for the City of Portland with a focus on healthy and safe rental housing. For more information on how Verde is using GEM, please contact Oriana Magnera at orianamagnera@verdenw.org. Image from the Zero Cities Project Report by Verde