Building Equity: Lessons in Sustainability from Community to College Campuses

Abstract

Buildings represent a middle ground between high-level and small-scale infrastructure. For this reason, they embody specific factors at the intersection of equity and opportunity. For example, recent studies show a correlation between energy efficiency upgrades, usually of interest only to the landlord; and the likelihood of tenant financial burdens and disconnection notices for energy bills. Correlations such as these at the building scale can help reveal otherwise unseen implications of transitions to less environmentally impactful energy technologies. The idea of “just transitions” will be explored in this context, as will comparative approaches from different segments of the US population from college campuses to community settings.