On April 21, 2021, Governor Cuomo announced that ten real estate organizations will partner with New York State in the Empire Building Challenge, an initiative to address barriers to carbon emissions reduction in high-rise buildings. The partners are committed to achieving carbon neutrality in one or more of the buildings they own and in more than 700 units of affordable housing collectively by identifying retrofit strategies that reduce upfront costs, minimize tenant disruption and are replicable in other buildings. Three participants are committed to achieving carbon neutrality in their entire real estate portfolio.
The ten real estate partners will be submitting carbon neutrality retrofit proposals to NYSERDA and may receive up to $5 million each to implement actions outlined in their proposals. The proposals will be evaluated on scalability and feasibility of addressing challenges in decarbonizing high-rise buildings. Willingness and ability to implement the project will also be part of the criteria. Over $6.8 billion is being invested across NYSERDA and New York utilities to decarbonize buildings and achieve the goal of reducing on-site energy consumption by 185 trillion BTUs by 2025.
Please click here for the complete announcement, including the list of participating partners.