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This report by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) outlines a community-based approach to enhancing energy resilience in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado, in partnership with Holy Cross Energy (HCE). Following the 2018 Lake Christine Fire, which nearly disabled power to the region, RMI led a five-month stakeholder process to identify and prioritize distributed energy solutions. The report advocates for a shift from traditional grid hardening and isolated backup generators toward integrated distributed energy resources (DERs) that provide both emergency backup ("black sky") and daily operational ("blue sky") value.

This RMI fact sheet debunks four industry myths regarding net-zero energy (NZE) leased buildings, asserting that they are more profitable for developers, attractive to a wide range of tenants due to productivity gains, and achievable in existing buildings through a structured process of data gathering and efficiency upgrades.

This briefing by RMI describes a shift from traditional air temperature-centric building design to a targeted approach based on six variables of thermal comfort. Using the Rocky Mountain Institute's Innovation Center as a case study, the document explains how integrating these variables through the Predictive Mean Vote (PMV) metric and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) can reduce energy use and support net-zero goals, while detailing the technical and contractual strategies needed to manage the associated risks of passive design.