Paying for Clean Building Materials with C-PACE

This briefing by RMI argues that Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing rules should be updated to include low-embodied-carbon building materials and material-efficient construction practices to unlock billions of dollars in investment.

• C-PACE loan programs have already provided $9 billion in low-cost financing for energy efficiency, electrification, and resilience upgrades in commercial real estate across 25 US states and cities.
• The document identifies cement and steel as major sources of pollution, noting that cement production specifically accounts for 8 percent of global CO2 emissions and is the third-largest source of industrial air pollution, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx), and sulfur dioxide.
• RMI proposes that C-PACE administrators update guidelines to classify the procurement of low-embodied-carbon materials and the reduction of material use as "energy improvements," as embodied carbon serves as a proxy for embodied energy.
• To incentivize the adoption of clean materials, C-PACE programs could reward two specific actions: procuring materials with global warming potentials that fall below regional targets, or demonstrating a reduction in whole-building embodied carbon via a Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessment.
• C-PACE programs can further incentivize clean materials by increasing financing limits for projects that demonstrate embodied carbon reduction, such as increasing a limit from 25 to 30 percent, which reduces the developer's cost of capital.

APA

RMI (2025). Paying for Clean Building Materials with C-PACE. https://rmi.org/resources/paying-for-clean-building-materials-with-c-pace/

Chicago

RMI. Paying for Clean Building Materials with C-PACE. 2025. https://rmi.org/resources/paying-for-clean-building-materials-with-c-pace/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Paying for Clean Building Materials with C-PACE |date=25 February 2025 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/paying-for-clean-building-materials-with-c-pace/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2025paying, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Paying for Clean Building Materials with C-PACE}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2025}, month = feb, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/paying-for-clean-building-materials-with-c-pace/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }