In this episode of In Conversation with Lone Star PACE, Beau Engman of PACE Equity breaks down his company’s CIRRUS Low Carbon program, which provides access to a decreased cost of capital when developers build or renovate with a lower-carbon design.
“Most developers build what they can optimize from the upfront economics,” Engman told Lone Star PACE. “Our hypothesis was that you can actually introduce sustainable elements to the design and improve the return on equity for developers.”
CIRRUS Low Carbon goes a step further than traditional C-PACE financing by requiring more stringent building practices, a more rigorous engineering review and a third-party verification. This results in a project that is between 5% and 10% more efficient than what the highest building codes in the country require.
Since launching the product in 2022, more than 1.1 million metric tons of carbon emissions have been eliminated across 125 projects nationwide – equivalent to the gasoline consumed by more than 118 million cars.
But the advantages aren’t purely environmental – developers who build to CIRRUS standards see the total financial benefits outpace the hard cost budget by 13 to 1, per the program’s latest impact report.
“The energy savings alone are not enough to move the needle for developers,” Engman said. “But when you match them with the financial savings, now all the sudden you have something really material that’s worth going after.”
More information on the CIRRUS Low Carbon program can be found here. Lone Star PACE is available to help facilitate any potential projects in Texas. For more information, schedule a meeting with our team today.