In 2019, Inclusiv launched our Center for Resiliency and Clean Energy through which we have built a network of over 150 community-based financial institutions committed to designing and scaling the climate finance solutions that promote affordable and sustainable energy and climate change solutions for all people. Many Community Development Credit Unions (CDCU) serve the low-income and communities of color that are on the frontlines of climate change, and therefore, the most vulnerable to the devastating impacts of climate events. These same communities also tend to pay disproportionately high energy bills and lack the access to affordable financing for clean energy and energy efficiency upgrades.

As financial cooperatives committed to investing in strong and healthy communities, credit unions are uniquely poised as vehicles for change, and are able to effectively deploy capital that can be utilized to develop local community solutions toward (seemingly) intractable problems such as climate change. In the aftermath of recent climate events, credit unions have been among the first to open their doors and provide cash to their members, even when their own systems were impaired. Credit unions are also addressing the root causes of climate change, by investing in clean energy and energy efficiency financing solutions that are specifically designed to serve local community needs by lowering both greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills.

With the recent passage of the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, $374 billion in federal funds have been allocated to drive clean energy and climate resilience over the next 10 years, and much of this is targeted at climate-vulnerable communities. As mission-driven lenders, CDCUs already offer both technical and financial assistance in climate-vulnerable communities to help residents access financial services such as financial coaching and mortgage down payment assistance. Join us for this conversation about the responsibility and opportunity that CDCUs have to help make their communities greener and more resilient, and how they can access the clean energy and climate resilience dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act to help finance projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution in the same climate-vulnerable communities where they already operate.