Clinton Climate Initiative’s Home Energy Affordability Loan (HEAL) Program Celebrates Five-Year Anniversary
Little Rock, Arkansas – The Home Energy Affordability Loan (HEAL) program is celebrating its fifth anniversary of making energy efficient home retrofits available as an employee benefit. Spearheaded by the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, HEAL works with employers to make energy improvement on company facilities and then provide employees with the resources to complete home audits and retrofits, the program is delivered in much the same way as a 401k or Flexible Spending Account. Since HEAL was enacted five years ago, HEAL and its replication programs have impacted 5,600 individuals in seven states, created over $3.75 million in construction activity and are producing utility bill savings of over $625,000 per year.
“By bringing a market-based solution the issue of home energy consumption, HEAL has proved that environmental sustainability is financially sensible,” said President Clinton. “Over the past five years, HEAL not only benefitted workers and their families, but helped their employers and communities with lower energy costs and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. I am proud that this program began in Arkansas. Its measured success proves that it is ready to be scaled up at home and implemented across the United States.”
HEAL was inspired by the Clinton Foundation’s Hurricane Katrina recovery programs in New Orleans. After seeing firsthand how energy efficient home renovations were benefitting low and moderate income homeowners, CCI developed the HEAL concept for use in the workplace. Launched in 2009 in Arkansas, in partnership with Governor Mike Beebe and the Arkansas Energy Office, CCI scaled HEAL to an employer in each of Arkansas’ Congressional Districts.
“For five years now, the Clinton Climate Initiative has worked diligently to reduce energy use in Arkansas homes and businesses,” Governor Mike Beebe said. “The Home Energy Affordability Loan program has created energy-service jobs, helping attract and train a skilled workforce in communities throughout our state.”
Since its inception ago, the HEAL program has focused on achieving the triple bottom line of:
- Social equity: Providing access to energy education and affordable energy financing for all economic levels of society.
- Economic development: Creating cost savings to the occupants and providing local jobs to implement the work.
- Environmental impact: Providing measurable and verifiable greenhouse gas reductions through energy retrofits.
To date, the HEAL program has been tested and replicated in seven states with organizations of varying types, sizes, and business sectors. Since launching in Arkansas, HEAL and its Replication Partners have piloted the program in Wisconsin, Vermont, Michigan, California, North Carolina and Missouri.
Currently, CCI is working to further develop the program with new offerings targeting other areas of employee sustainability such as transportation and water conservation.
###
About the Clinton Climate Initiative
The Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) was launched in 2006 to implement solutions to the root causes of climate change. CCI works to improve the energy efficiency and advance building retrofits; to increase access to clean energy technology and deploy it at the government, corporate, and homeowner levels; to help over 20 island nations reduce their reliance on diesel and adopt renewable energy; and to monitor, preserve and grow forests in line with national governments and communities. CCI’s approach addresses the major sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the people, policies, and practices that impact them - while also saving money for individuals and governments, creating jobs, and growing economies.
About the Clinton Foundation
The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation convenes businesses, governments, NGOs, and individuals to improve global health and wellness, increase opportunity for women and girls, reduce childhood obesity, create economic opportunity and growth, and help communities address the effects of climate change. Because of our work, 26,000 American schools are providing kids with healthy food choices in an effort to eradicate childhood obesity; 36,000 farmers in Malawi and Tanzania have improved their incomes by more than 500 percent; 248 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions are being reduced in cities worldwide; more than 5,000 people have been trained in marketable job skills in Colombia; 8.2 million people have access to lifesaving HIV/AIDS medications; $200 million in strategic investments have been made, impacting the health of 75 million people in the U.S.; and members of the Clinton Global Initiative have made nearly 3,100 Commitments to Action to improve more than 430 million lives around the world.
Learn more at http://www.clintonfoundation.org, on Facebook at Facebook.com/ClintonFoundation and on Twitter @ClintonFdn.
