Equity Metrics for Residential Building Decarbonization

Residential buildings are an often overlooked source of carbon pollution. The building sector must increase energy efficiency measures and replace fossil fuel-powered appliances with electric alternatives. However, barriers such as cost and access to residential building decarbonization programs can have significant equity implications. The distribution of benefits and burdens for residential building decarbonization programs, policies, and other initiatives needs to be taken into account as the low-carbon energy transition continues to accelerate.

Explore this page to see equity metrics based on the three dimensions of health, access, and livelihood. This framework can be used as a starting point to evaluate the equity and justice impacts of residential building decarbonization initiatives.

Health Dimension

Indicator

Proximity to hazard

Pollutant Exposure

Health outcome

Health monetization

Metric

Household fuel usage

Household pollutant concentration and exposure

Pollutant emissions

Incidence and risk of disease

Avoided premature mortality

Avoided morbidity

Monetized health benefits or costs

Measurement

Total households using natural gas cooking (#), proportion of households using natural gas cooking (%), total households using solid fuels for cooking (#)

Percentage of households exposed (%), change in personal pollutant exposure (%)

Pollutant emissions per unit of energy (g J-1) or per unit of time (g h-1)

Proportion of asthma cases attributable to gas stove use (%), increased asthma risk associated with gas cooking (%), disability adjusted life years (DALY)

Cumulative avoided premature mortalities (#), annual avoided premature mortalities (# year -1)

Annual avoided bronchitis cases (# year -1)

Cumulative health benefits ($), annual health benefits ($ year -1)

  • According to the 2020 RECS, approximately 47 million US households (38%) use natural gas for cooking (EIA 2022a)

    Globally, approximately 2.6 billion individuals rely on solid fuels for cooking (IEA et al 2021)

  • Models estimate that in homes using residential natural gas cooking burners without venting range hoods, approximately 62% of occupants are exposed to NO2 levels that exceed acute health based standards (Logue et al 2014)

    In a randomized trial in Guatemala, replacing indoor open wood fires with improved chimney wood stoves reduced CO concentration levels by 90% within kitchens and reduced personal CO exposure by 52% for children and 61% for mothers (Smith et al 2010)

  • Natural gas stovetops emit approximately 21.7 ng NOx per joule during use, and in homes without range hoods or adequate ventilation, emissions can exceed the 1 h national standard (100 ppb) in just a few minutes of use (Lebel et al 2022)

  • An Australian study determined a population attributable fraction that associates 12.3% of Australian childhood asthma cases with gas stoves, which corresponds to 2756 disability-adjusted life years (Knibbs et al 2018) A meta-analysis of 42 studies estimated that children exposed to gas cooking had a 32% increased risk of having current and lifetime asthma (Lin et al 2013)

    There are approximately 2.3 million deaths and 91 million disability-adjusted life years attributed each year to associated household air pollution from solid fuels (Murray et al 2020)

  • The transition from natural gas to electric appliances in California could result in approximately 354 fewer deaths per year (Zhu et al 2020) Intensive energy efficiency improvements for buildings throughout the US could lead to a projected 1800–3600 annual avoided premature mortalities by 2050 (Gillingham et al 2021)

  • The transition from natural gas to electric appliances in California is estimated to result in approximately 900 fewer cases of bronchitis annually (Zhu et al 2020)

  • The transition from natural gas to electric appliances in California is estimated to result in approximately $3.5 billion in monetized health benefits per year (Zhu et al 2020)

Access Dimension

Resource availability

Resource cost

Technology adoption

Program participation

Energy efficiency measure availability

Energy efficiency measure cost

Energy efficiency measure adoption

Energy efficiency (EE) program participation

Proportion of stores selling energy efficient light bulbs by neighborhood poverty level (%); relative likelihood of landlord installing energy efficiency measure between rental and owner-occupied properties (%); difference in number of energy efficiency measures by building type and home ownership status (#)

Relative cost of energy efficiency measures across communities ($), cost difference of efficiency upgrades across communities

Relative energy efficiency measure adoption by home ownership status (%)

Participation rates in EE programs by income (%), relative likelihood of EE program participation

  • In Wayne County, Michigan, LED light bulbs were available in 91% of stores located in neighborhoods with the lowest poverty levels compared to 57% of stores located in neighborhoods with the highest poverty levels (Reames et al 2018)

    Landlords are approximately 10% less likely to employ caulking, weather stripping, and multi-pane windows in their rental properties compared to owner-occupiers (Melvin 2018)

    In 2009, multifamily rental units occupied by low-income households in the United States had approximately 4.7 fewer energy efficiency features (e.g. appliances, HVAC systems, building features) than their counterparts, which equated to between $200 and $400 per year in potential energy savings (Pivo 2014)

  • In Wayne County, Michigan, neighborhoods with the highest poverty levels had a mean LED light bulb price of $7.87 compared to a price of $5.20 in neighborhoods with the lowest poverty levels, and the mean price difference between inefficient (IHL) and efficient (LED) light bulbs was $6.24 compared to just $3.10 in neighborhoods with the lowest poverty levels (Reames et al 2018)

  • Renters are less likely to report having energy-efficient refrigerators (−6.7%), dishwashers (−9.5%), and lighting (−4.9%) compared to homeowners (Davis 2012)

  • Low-income households have disproportionately low participation rates in energy efficiency (EE) programs, with the exception of free or subsidized light bulb programs. 1.6% of low-income households (LIH) received tax credits for new efficient appliances/equipment compared to 11.8% of high-income households (HIH), and 4.9% of LIH received free or subsidized efficient light bulbs compared to 4.6% of HIH (Xu and Chen 2019)

    In the US, heads of household with at least a bachelor’s degree were 8 percentage points more likely to receive some type of energy efficiency assistance than those without a high school degree (Pigman et al 2021)

Indicator

Metric

Measurement

Livelihood Dimension

Employment

Safety and security

Number of jobs

Energy security

Displacement

Job years (#), full-time equivalent jobs (#)

Share of households reporting energy insecurity pre and post energy efficiency program (%), relative risk ratio (RR) of experiencing energy insecurity by race, immigration status, and other factors, the difference between the highest and lowest median household inflection temperatures across income groups (◦F or ◦C)

Changes in electricity consumption across income and racial groups (%)

Annual energy cost changes ($ year -1), annual household energy savings ($ year -1)

Difference in average rent increase by renovation type (%), share of households facing rent increases due to energy efficiency renovations (%), proportion of tenants displaced from rent increases due to energy efficiency renovations (%)

  • In households that participated in the US Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), a low-income energy efficiency program, 75% reported difficulty paying their utility bills before receiving WAP assistance compared to 49% after receiving WAP assistance (Tonn et al 2014)

    Among low-income households with children, the relative risk ratio of experiencing energy insecurity (spending more than 10% of household income on utility expenses) is 2.11 for native born Black families compared to native-born White families (Hernández et al 2016)

    In an Arizona study, researchers evaluated the differences in household inflection temperatures between income groups and estimated the energy equity gap to be between 4.7 ◦F and 7.5 ◦F (Cong et al 2022)

  • Utility disconnections in California rose 64% from 2010 to 2016 and disconnections in Texas tripled from 2006 to 2016 (Verclas and Hsieh 2018)

    SoCal Edison’s service territory is approximately 33% White, but the 20 zip codes with the highest shutoff rates are made up of less than 17% White customers. Latinos comprise 45% of the service territory but represent 63% of the population in the most affected zip codes, and Black residents represent 18% of the population in zip codes with the highest disconnection rates but only comprise 6% of the service territory (Sandoval and Toney 2018)

Increase in utility disconnections (%), utility disconnection rates across zip codes by race and ethnicity (%)

  • Decarbonization of Los Angeles’ existing residential building stock could create between 261 000 and 389 000 job years (full-time job for one person for 1 year), and investment in decarbonizing the city’s affordable housing over 10 years could create 4600–7400 FTE union construction jobs per year (Jones 2021)

  • COVID-19 mitigation measures in Arizona and Illinois increased residential electricity consumption by 4%–5% while decreasing commercial electricity consumption by 5%–8%; in Arizona, low-income non-White populations had a 9.69% increase in electricity consumption, and low-income White populations had a 3.69% increase (Lou et al 2021)

  • A 15% reduction in gas customers by 2030 could result in an average $30 annual bill increase, a 40% reduction by 2040 could result in an average $120 annual bill increase, and a 90% reduction by 2050 could result in an average $1600 annual bill increase for remaining gas customers (Davis and Hausman 2022)

    A new construction electrification mandate would have a financial impact of less than $300 annually on average for warm states, but that impact increases to $1000+ annually for households in cold states (Davis 2021)

    Targeted energy efficiency improvements in US single family households below 200% of the federal poverty level could result in an average of $670 in annual household savings, which equates to about 1 exajoule of annual primary energy savings (Wilson et al 2019)

  • In Sweden between 2013 and 2019, multifamily housing renovations with large energy performance improvements were correlated with increased cost burdens for tenants (3–6 percentage points higher rent increases) than renovations without energy performance improvements (von Platten et al 2022)

    A case study of 10 retrofitted multifamily buildings in Germany found that despite a 70% reduction in energy consumption, more than 50% of the households faced increased costs due to rent increases (Weber and Wolff 2018)

    Building renovations in Sweden have been linked with rent increases and increased displacement, with approximately 25% of tenants moving out from renovated apartments compared to 14% from non-renovated apartments (Baeten et al 2017)

Indicator

Metric

Energy insecurity

Energy consumption

Energy expenditures

Utility disconnections

Measurement