Co-benefit’s Conditions: Aligning Social, Economic, and Climate Goals to Decarbonize New York City’s Residential Buildings

• In Event: 40463 - Climate Change, Risk, and Markets

Abstract

Scholars have developed rich evidence of “co-benefits” — social and environmental ‘wins-wins’ of climate actions — but ruminate the continued focus of decision-makers on techno-economic objectives. Yet in 43 interviews and observations of stakeholders involved in the decarbonization of New York City’s residential buildings, we find that all recognized health, environmental, and social co-benefits, but differed in whether they could commensurate co-benefits with cost. The exceptionality of the city, state, and Federal policies, enacted 2019 onwards, that created a unique bundle of incentives to decarbonize buildings, and the internal variation within the city of how homes are governed, provides grounds to understand the market and institutional conditions in which co-benefits were incorporated into people’s decision-making.

Public subsidies and low-cost finance created conditions that incentivized private developers to not only pursue decarbonization but also health and social co-benefits. Beyond adhering to state mandates, people also invoked co-benefits in competitive settings to narratively set their buildings apart. In ambiguous situations, where price and policy signals were not clear, many emphasized co-benefits in anticipation of shifting incentives to reduce emissions and avoid sunken costs in fossil fuel infrastructure. But many who continued to be bound to raise finance from conventional, “co-benefit-blind” institutions, arguing that while health and social concerns were important, they did not address their primary concerns in raising capital. They offered a variety of justifications: co-benefits are either insufficiently measured, unrecognized by financial institutions, or minor compared to the vast sums necessary to build low-carbon buildings. In these situations, co-benefits are perceived as incommensurate, or in tension, with financial concerns. The paper suggests the need for more scholarly attention to not only bolster the evidence for co-benefits, which is now clear to many but to identify the social conditions that enable their incorporation into decision-making procedures.

Authors

• Ankit Bhardwaj, Northwestern University

• Gianpaolo Baiocchi, New York University

• H. Jacob Carlson, Kean University

• Bianca Howard, Columbia University

• Brady Kennedy, Columbia University

• Josh Whitford, Columbia University