Co-Benefits with Energy Savings

There were nearly 2.2 million U.S. jobs in energy efficiency in 2021, making up 40% of all traditional energy and energy efficiency jobs as defined by the 2021 U.S. Energy & Employment Report (USEER).1 Not only is energy efficiency a leading job-creator nationwide in the energy sector, energy efficiency jobs are also a key driver of our local economies: more than 70% of workers are employed by small businesses, and energy efficiency jobs exist in 99.8% of counties.

These jobs also represent a wide range of skillsets, many of which cannot be outsourced: more than 50% of energy efficiency jobs are in construction, while professional services (including consulting, engineering, finance, legal, etc.) constitute about 20% of jobs.2

Currently, roughly 11% of these workers are covered by a union or project labor agreement, which is nearly double the national average (6%).3

Community action agencies have weatherized nearly 3 million homes since 2004 under DOE’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). Additional funding has come from the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), utility programs, and formerly the Petroleum Violation Escrow (PVE) Funds (1981-2009) and 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) appropriations (2010-2012). 

Weatherization not only helps relieve high water and energy bills but also delivers important non-energy benefits, such as increased comfort, improved health outcomes, and consequently lower out-of-pocket medical expenses.9, 10 Weatherizing a home could deliver over $15,000 ($2021) in lifetime societal non-energy benefits and $1,800 in lifetime benefits direct to the household.11 In 2019 alone, the 85,000 low-income homes weatherized delivered an estimated $1.3 billion in societal non-energy benefits. 

The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included an additional $3.5 billion for WAP to be spent over several years. In addition, the Inflation Reduction Act provides tens of billions of dollars for energy improvements to existing homes and for broad greenhouse gas reduction programs, much of it directed to low-income and disadvantaged communities.

More than 60% of low-income households in the U.S. face a high energy burden, with some paying more than 20% of their income on utility bills.12 These consumers’ lower incomes, coupled with the fact that they often live in less energy-efficient housing, boosts the impacts of energy efficiency investments to enhance quality of life and reduce energy expenditures. High energy burdens can lead households to make sacrifices: 27% of all households reported some sort of energy insecurity, leading them to forego other necessities to pay an energy bill or to maintain their home at an unsafe temperature.

Energy-efficient buildings have many advantages: they consume less energy, require less maintenance, have lower operating costs and higher asset values, and tend to be more comfortable, healthy, and productive work environments for occupants. The table above shows the range of impacts different studies found from deep energy retrofits.

The table of productivity values shows estimates from different studies of the range of impacts of specific energy efficiency measures on the productivity of office workers due to lower rates of absenteeism, employee turnover, and health symptoms, and enhanced job satisfaction and self-assessed performance. The wide ranges show the difficulty of measuring productivity impacts as well as the varying circumstances.

The “3-30-300” rule provides a scale-of-magnitude illustration of the impacts of productivity on a business, noting that a company typically pays $3 for utilities, $30 for rent, and $300 for payroll per square foot. Saving 10% on utility costs saves 30 cents per square foot, but saving 10% on payroll costs as a result of increased worker productivity would cover the cost of the real estate.