News from the
Center for Environmental Finance
Advancing sustainable finance and technology solutions
svEPA
Office of the Chief
Financial Officer
June 2012
Volume 3, Issue 2
Listening Sessions on Sustainability
In response to a request from EPA's
Administrator Lisa Jackson, the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS),
in August, 2011, presented EPA
with a framework for incorporating
Sustainability into its principles
and decision making. The report,
Sustainability and the US EPA
(internally within EPA, the report is
known as the Green Book), concludes that the Agency's
mission is consistent with the concept of Sustainability
and provides a framework for more systematically
institutionalizing this paradigm into EPA operations. It
identifies changes necessary at the organizational level,
such as policies and metrics, and it outlines a process for
incorporating Sustainability into EPA's daily work.
Under Administrator Jackson's direction, the Agency
hosted a series of listening sessions with external
stakeholders through March 2012. In these discussions,
the Agency asked businesses, and other nongovernmental
and governmental entities, to share thoughts on how EPA
might put the NAS recommendations into practice.
EPA's Center for Environmental Finance (CEF) reached
out to a wide range of stakeholders on EPA's Environmental
Financial Advisory Board, the ten university-based
Environmental Finance Centers and others. CEF was
particularly interested in stakeholder advice on how
best EPA can promote sustainable financing in its work
and in its partnering and advocacy relationships. Topics
for the listening sessions included: (1) transit-oriented
development in support of the Sustainable Community
Partnership between EPA, the Department of Housing
and Urban Development, and the Department of
Transportation; (2) promoting private investments in a
green economy and corporate Sustainability; (3) effective
use of cost benefit analyses in Agency decision making;
(4) using information technology to measure, monitor,
and report; and (5) strategies for sustainable financing of
Tribal environmental programs.
The results of these listening sessions will be combined
with those of other sessions held by offices across EPA.
The ideas and suggestions received from stakeholders will
help to inform EPA's response to the NAS report.
The complete NAS report can be viewed at http://sites, nationalacademies. org/PGA/sustainability/EPA/index. htm.
-------
Clean Air Technology Financing Incentives - Preliminary
Findings from the Environmental Financial Advisory Board
A year ago, the EPA promulgated
the Maximum Achievable Control
Technology (MACT) regulation
to limit emissions of hazardous air
pollutants from industrial boilers
which burn oil, coal, biomass refinery
gas, or other gas to produce steam.
Most facilities will comply with this
regulation by installing pollution
control equipment; however, new
technology exists that operates more
efficiently and reduces the emission
of hazardous air pollutants and green
house gases.
The Environmental Financial Advisory
Board (EFAB) submitted a preliminary
report to EPA's Office of Air and
Radiation on financing incentives
for replacing boilers with clean air
technology. The Board provided this
report to identify creative financing
ideas that might provide incentives for
business owners to consider newer,
cleaner technologies in their plants
rather than retrofitting existing boilers
with pollution controls.
EFAB's preliminary findings include:
• The financial condition of boiler
owners vary widely from industry
to industry;
• New EPA rules are opposed by
owners because compliance
requires costly capital
expenditures; and
• New technologies are expensive
and not particularly energy
efficient.
These preliminary findings underscore
the challenges to increasing the
use of environmentally-beneficial
technologies. EFAB will continue
to expand its analysis, concluding
that the new MACT rules provide
an unprecedented opportunity to
involve boiler owners in proactively
contributing to improving the quality
of our environment.
The complete report can be viewed at http://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=P 100E7CO.txt. To browse other reports issued by
the Environmental Financial Advisory Board, please visit http://www.epa.gov/envirofinance/publications.html.
EPA's Roadmap for Technology
Innovation
In April, EPA announced its
Roadmap, Technology Innovation
for Environmental and Economic
Progress. The Roadmap highlights
EPA activities to further dialogue
with technology developers, small
business entrepreneurs, and the
investment community for the purpose
of promoting technology innovation to
solve environmental problems.
The Roadmap helps EPA focus its
efforts in three areas: research and
development, engaging with the
private sector, and ensuring sound
policy choices through regulations that
drive technological innovation that
can provide stronger environmental
protection at lower economic costs.
The Roadmap shines a spotlight on
EPA's role in thinking differently about
environmental technology to figure out
better ways of doing business to protect
the environment and human health.
EPA's recent activities under the
framework of the Roadmap include the
Agency's involvement in technology
clusters, hosting a technology market
summit, and supporting small
businesses that are working to develop
innovative environmental technologies.
For more information, please visit http://www.epa.gov/envirofinance/innovation.html.
Upcoming Events
Residential Energy Efficiency
Solutions: From Innovation to
Market Transformation
July 9-11, 2012
Register at http://wwwl.
eere.energy.gov/buildings/
betterbuildings/neighborhoods/
workshops July_2012.html
Quarterly Conversation with
EPA Leadership
Date TBD
To receive participation
information, please email
ocfoinfo@epa.gov or visit http://
www.epa.gov/envirofinance/
Center for Environmental Finance Newsletter • June 2012 • EPA-190-N-12-002
Page 2
------- |