Financing Building Decarbonization

This executive summary describes a bottom-up carbon analysis of the United States building stock conducted by RMI to identify which building segments produce the most operational emissions and where capital flows should be prioritized for decarbonization.

• Building operations are responsible for 23% of the annual carbon emissions in the United States, with the majority of these emissions coming from existing buildings, which have an annual addition or renovation rate of less than 1%.
• Single-family homes are the largest contributor to building emissions in the US at 58%, making their decarbonization critical for meeting climate goals and suggesting a need for increased climate-aligned investment.
• Commercial buildings account for 37% of US building emissions, with 56% of those emissions originating from small and medium-sized buildings. While large commercial buildings currently receive the most climate-aligned capital, RMI concludes that investment should shift toward small and medium-sized commercial buildings to achieve meaningful reductions.

APA

RMI (2024). Financing Building Decarbonization. https://rmi.org/resources/financing-building-decarbonization-leveraging-a-sector-wide-carbon-model-to-prioritize-capital-flows/

Chicago

RMI. Financing Building Decarbonization. 2024. https://rmi.org/resources/financing-building-decarbonization-leveraging-a-sector-wide-carbon-model-to-prioritize-capital-flows/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Financing Building Decarbonization |date=6 March 2024 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/financing-building-decarbonization-leveraging-a-sector-wide-carbon-model-to-prioritize-capital-flows/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2024financing, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Financing Building Decarbonization}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2024}, month = mar, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/financing-building-decarbonization-leveraging-a-sector-wide-carbon-model-to-prioritize-capital-flows/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }