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Funding Opportunity
Logo *
White Papers: Climate Benefits of Innovative Housing Production Methods
Organization Name
California Air Resources Board
Funding Opportunity Brief *
Announcing a request for proposals to develop white papers examining: (1) the potential climate and housing production benefits of adaptive reuse and factory-built housing and (2) feasibility of a state-facilitated building materials exchange.
Program Name
California Air Resources Board Sustainable Transportation and Communities Programs
Equity Categories
Disadvantaged Community
Low Income Community
Description

This is a competitive contract solicitation to support the California Air Resources Board (CARB or Board) Sustainable Transportation and Communities Division. CARB encourages proposers to form multidisciplinary teams to fulfill contract requirements. Principal Investigators (PIs) must be affiliated with University of California and California State Universities; however, CARB encourages PIs to recruit non-academic and diverse partners when appropriate. California has a severe housing shortage that impacts households and also contributes to emissions from transportation because when not enough housing is available in high-demand areas, people are forced to live where they must drive more and longer to get to where they need to go. In particular, housing in “location-efficient” places with more viable alternatives to driving – which can help reduce emissions, increase affordable housing, and improve access to job centers and economic opportunity – is often the most challenging and expensive type of housing to build. Yet California’s vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals rely on more infill housing being built. These white papers will examine two innovative housing production methods and their potential climate and housing production benefits. The first paper will examine scaling-up commercial-to-residential adaptive reuse and factory-built prefabricated construction to accelerate the pace of infill housing production in California. Specifically, the paper will address the potential cost savings of these methods versus traditional construction, and the potential GHG reduction benefits of building life cycle, construction materials, construction processes (including transportation emissions for prefab projects using locally fabricated components as opposed to components built out of state), VMT of housing residents, and energy/water savings due to increased high-density housing. The second white paper will be a feasibility report examining a state-administered leveraged procurement approach to providing low-carbon building materials at a lower cost for the purpose of accelerating high-density infill housing production. The paper will answer the questions: What are the potential construction cost savings for housing projects, and how much would these savings increase production of infill housing? What are the potential climate benefits of that increased infill housing production, as well as the increased demand for low-carbon building materials?

Available Funding
$200,000.00
Tags
Climate Adaptation/Mitigation
Advanced Manufacturing
Emerging Technology
Government
Buildings