Providence is working to figure out how to pay for its 2040 mandate to “decarbonize” about 130 municipal buildings through a series of retrofits, and city officials say a revolving green fund is the answer.
City Councilwoman Susan R. Anderbois, who introduced the measure to create one, said plans call for the fund to be seeded with about $3 million from the city’s capital improvement program. City officials hope it will become a self-replenishing pool of money built on energy savings, rebates and clean-energy incentives.
From there, the funds would be reinvested into future upgrades.
“We’re going to ensure that the city will always have a pool of money to close any gaps for deploying energy efficiency or renewable energy,” Anderbois said. “This is about reinvesting what we’re already saving.”
The idea, she said, is to reduce reliance on one-time appropriations or outside grants as the city faces pressure to meet its climate mandate.
A 2024 decarbonization ordinance requires all municipal buildings to reach carbon neutrality by 2040, and a roadmap outlines how that shift would unfold across schools, recreation centers and administrative facilities.
The challenge is funding, she said.
Even before proposing the fund, Providence reduced municipal energy use by roughly 7% over two years through efficiency upgrades, Anderbois said.
And those projects alone secured the city about $3.2 million in utility and clean-energy incentives.
Now it’s hoped the revolving fund, which has the backing of Mayor Brett P. Smiley, will allow the city to reinvest savings into future upgrades rather than lose them to the general budget, said Priscilla de la Cruz, the city’s director of sustainability.
“We’ve already been doing the work,” de la Cruz said. “The fund is about sustaining it and accelerating it.”
The approach relies on a building-by-building analysis of energy use, emissions and equipment lifecycle to identify where upgrades will have the greatest impact.
Schools, which account for roughly 70% of municipal emissions, are a central focus, along with recreation centers and older administrative buildings nearing replacement cycles.
“You’re looking at where the impact is biggest and where the timing already makes sense,” de la Cruz said. “If a roof is ready for solar or a system is at the end of life, you don’t miss that moment.”
Anderbois said the City Council has already unanimously approved its climate goals. The focus now is on implementation.
“There’s never enough funding for everything,” she said. “This is about reinvesting what we’re already saving and putting it back to work for the city.”
Federal clean-energy tax credits and incentive programs that helped seed early projects are expected to wind down in the coming years, tightening the window for municipalities to secure outside funding.
Still, the model is not without precedent.
Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Brown University professor who studies governance and policy implementation, said revolving funds have been used in multiple jurisdictions with positive results.
“These funds are a good idea, and they have worked well in a number of places,” West said.
De la Cruz pointed to Vermont, where a statewide municipal green revolving fund supports energy upgrades across towns, and Arlington, Massachusetts, which uses a similar structure to reinvest energy savings into future projects.
But West said success depends on execution.
“The key issue is tracking the money coming in and going out,” West said. “Some places develop public dashboards so people can see exactly what is happening. That kind of transparency matters.”
Providence officials say the system will include tracking mechanisms for project savings, with oversight through the City Council’s capital improvement review process and day-to-day management handled by sustainability staff.
Under the proposal, projects would be selected based on emissions impact, cost savings and readiness, with early gains expected to finance later rounds rather than restart the budget cycle each time.
After a presentation last week before the City Council’s special committee on environment and resiliency, Anderbois said the proposal is now ready for a full Council review and potentially a vote.
